CEE, others come together to bring down fatalities below 100 by 2020 World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims
The year 2018 saw the city recording 1,339 cases of accidents (up to October) of which 265 were fatal (19.7 per cent) against 1,416 cases and 294 deaths (21 per cent) in the year 2017. Though the total number of cases and deaths this year seem to be on a slight decline, the number of people grievously injured during the year has seen a surge. The numbers went up from 343 in 2017 to 357 in 2018. The number of common injuries in accident however saw a decline to 911 (up to Oct 2018) from 958 in the year 2017. Those in the know said before the year was over, the figure would likely be crossed.
The figures were revealed at an initiative launched by the Centre for Environment Education (CEE) to help reduce number of fatal accidents in the city to below 100 by 2020.
"The initiative that covers Gujarat and Maharashtra aims to bring down fatal accidents in the state. The motive is to bring together various stakeholders to form a Road Safety Network to help strengthen road safety legislations and ensure their implementation," said Kartikeya Sarabhai of CEE.
Sanjay Kharat, DCP Traffic said that policing alone won't solve the problem of people not following traffic rules. "Policing should be for the 10 per cent of violators. But in our case, it becomes difficult when 90 per cent of the people are not following the rules," said Kharat. He said the problem was with the overall attitude and there was a need to change it. "A lot of time people tell me it is because of lack of awareness. But that is not what we have observed during our traffic drives. When a person is held for violations we ask them if they knew they were supposed to wear helmets or seatbelts and almost all of them knew the law. So the problem is with our attitude of not following the rules and this needs to change if we are to bring in effective change," said Kharat.
Abhijit Lokre of The Urban Lab said the fatalities and accidents can be reduced by proper street designs. "We are obsessed with speed. As speed increases safety deceases. We need to calm down our urban areas and there is a need to have design audit of any new projects," said Lokre. He said a decade ago the city had no flyovers and now it has 14 yet we have not been able to bring down accidents or improve traffic congestions.
DANGEROUS ROADS
- The year 2018 saw the city recording 1,339 accidents (up to October) of which 265 were fatal
- In 2017, there were 1,416 cases & 294 deaths
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