More and more vehicles involved in hit-and-run accidents are going untraced. Scores of such vehicles, which speed up after running pedestrians over or hitting motorcyclists, are yet to be identified.
Statistics provided by the City traffic police show that a total of 176 unidentified vehicles were involved in fatal and non-fatal accidents in 2014.
A hundred of them were involved in fatal accidents which resulted in the death of 102 people.
Seventy-three unidentified vehicles were involved in non-fatal accidents that resulted in injury to 85 people.
In 2013, a total of 143 vehicles went untraced; 69 of them were involved in fatal accidents, killing 71 people, and 70 in non-fatal accidents, injuring 81 people. These unidentified vehicles have not been traced either.
Daily effort
Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) B Dayananda insists that efforts are being made “on a daily basis” to trace the unidentified vehicles.
“The public or fellow motorists should immediately note down the registration number of vehicles which speed up after an accident. Usually, hit-and-run incidents occur at night as there are no people and not much movement of other vehicles.
If any vehicle runs a person over in daylight, the driver flees the spot but abandons the vehicle, fearing public outrage. The abandoned vehicle makes the job easy for us to nab the culprit. But during the night, these drivers are at an advantage as no one is noticing them. They flee the spot with the vehicle after causing the damage,” he explained.
M N Babu Rajendra Prasad, DCP, Traffic (East), said, “Unidentified vehicles are mostly involved in hit-and-run cases. Such incidents occur at desolate spots—on flyovers, in subways or late in the night.
There are no CCTV cameras at such places. Even people who witness the hit-and-run accidents are always into rushing the victim to a nearby hospital to save the life. In this process, they forget to note down the registration number of the vehicle which caused the accident. This way, the traffic police lose vital clues.”
He continued: “Most unidentified vehicles are from other states and it is a difficult task to trace them. The need for high-resolution CCTV cameras which can record videos of high definition is being discussed with senior police officers.”
