Kochi’s deadly roads show no mercy to pedestrians

October 17, 2013

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Gireesh P Krishnan, TNN |

KOCHI: The traffic police, National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), public works department (PWD) and related authorities have to make concerted efforts if they are to going to bring down road accident casualties in the city. Despite their tall claims, the city still witnessed a marginal increase in road accident deaths this year compared to the previous one till September. If road accidents claimed 109 lives in 2013 from January to September, it stood at 102 deaths for the same period last year.May turned out to be cruelest month for pedestrians and motorists this year with 20 dying on city roads. Last year, May in contrast reported only 10 road accident deaths. April was not far behind with 17 deaths reported this year compared with 15 the year before.

Though there has been an overall increase in accident deaths, it has decreased since July compared to the same period last year. While seven died in accidents in July against nine in 2012, it was 10 in August against 14 the previous year, and nine in September compared with 14 in 2012.

“A majority of those who died in road accidents this year were pedestrians. Lack of proper crossings and barricades have been a problem. To address the issue, we have conducted awareness programmes for private bus drivers and auto drivers,” said P P Shams, assistant commissioner, traffic east. He added that NHAI was asked to erect barricades on the median in the NH47 bypass, where most of the pedestrians died in accidents, and to restrict pedestrian crossings to selected points.

While around 40 pedestrians died in road accidents in the first nine months of the year, 20 two-wheeler riders and 15 pillion riders died till October. More people died in accidents that occurred during day time.

Even though accident deaths have gone up this year, there has been a marginal decrease in the number of road accidents. It has declined from 1,732 in 2012 to 1,718 in 2013. According to police, two-wheelers were involved in more than 500 reported accidents.

Source-http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com