Traffic cops take violators to book, bring accidents down

Safer roads, stricter cops bring road deaths to a 10-year low

The roads in the Capital are becoming safer. The figures of accidents and deaths during the first five months of this year are the lowest compared to the same period over the last one decade.

 Till May-end, there were 604 accidents and 709 deaths, the lowest number.

According to Delhi Police officials, the success in bringing down the accident figures, despite the number of vehicles on the city roads increasing every day, lay in the small road engineering measures in key accident prone areas.

“At some places speed calming measures like rumble strips were introduced in association with land owning agencies.

Pedestrian facilities like footbridges, zebra crossings and pedestrian signals were also provided at some of the locations,” said Satydendra Garg, joint comissioner of police (traffic). Rigorous prosecution of traffic violations like speeding and have also brought the desired results, added  Garg.

Delhi Traffic Police aims to bring down the number of deaths in accidents below the 2000 mark. Despite the aggressive prosecution of traffic rule violators, the number of fatal accidents recorded during 2011 was 2,007, though it did show a declining trend over the last five years.

However, some of the measures taken to curb accidents along with increased prosecution has already made an impact this year at some of the accident prone areas.

There were nine fatal accidents on Mathura Road from January to May this year – that's 67 per cent down from the 27 during the same period last year. Similarly, Garg said, the numbers have come down to 19 from 45 (58 percent decline) on G T Karnal Road.

NH-24, where a high number of fatal accidents were recorded last year has in fact gone out of the list of top 20 accident prone areas, Garg added.

Police officials said prosecution against traffic violations has also witnessed a steep increase this year. While 2,960 people were booked for drunk driving in 2011, around 3,049 people have already been booked under the offence during the first five months of the year.

Similarly, while 44,618 motorists were fined for speeding last year, around 50,000 people so far people have been fined, officials said.