Faridkot admn gears up to check rising road mishaps : The Tribune India

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Faridkot admn gears up to check rising road mishaps

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, December 25

Keeping in view the increasing number of road mishaps in the prevailing foggy conditions, when the visibility on roads has diminished significantly, the district administration has started a special drive to educate people and ask authorities concerned to buckle up to take precautionary measures to avoid road accidents.

The highest number of road mishaps is witnessed in December and January. In comparison to death of average 394 persons every month in the state in 2018, the number was 412, 457 and 430 in January, November and December, respectively, last year.

DEATH TOLL

Though 2.28 per cent of the country’s total population lived in Punjab but its share in deaths due to road accident ranged from 3.3 to 3.5 per cent in the last five years, which is a worrisome figure.
Around 75 per cent of those involved in fatal road accidents were in the age group of 18 to 45 and road accidents was the leading cause of deaths in the state.

At a meeting attended by heads of various departments such as Transport, PWD, Rural Development, Forest, Police and National Highway on Tuesday, the Deputy Commissioner of Faridkot, Kumar Saurabh Raj, asked them to take all preventive steps to check increasing rate of road mishaps. We need to remove all encroachments on state highways, prune trees so that these do not hamper visibility on roads, ensure use of reflector on all vehicles, mainly on all tractor-trolley and bull carts, make solid white line to mark the shoulder and middle of roads, repair sign boards, plug all illegal median cuts, which are major reasons behind mishaps, said the DC.

The illegal median cuts on state and national highway hamper traffic flow and lead to vehicular conflicts that often end in road accidents, he said. The DC asked the police to keep a close tab on over-speeding, drunken-driving, red light jumping, ensure use of safety gears such as seat belts and helmets, check wrongful overtaking and ensure adherence to lane driving norms.

13 deaths daily

There were 134 road mishaps in 2018 in the district and 116 of these accidents were categorised as fatal for loss of 126 human lives. As many as 4,725 people died in different road accidents, which meant on average, 13 people lost their lives daily last year. Though 2.28 per cent of the country’s total population lived in Punjab but its share in total road accident deaths ranged from 3.3 to 3.5 per cent in the last five years, which is a worrisome figure.

The most unfortunate thing was that we don’t learn our from mistakes and this laxity on the part of road users was causing accidents and crashes. Human errors are main cause of accidents and crashes, said Kumar Saurabh.

Punjab had a total of 8,36,021 registered motor vehicles till last year and the total number of cumulative registered vehicles in the state till December 2018 was 1.13 crore. 75 per cent of those involved in fatal road accidents were in the age group of 18 to 45 and road accidents was the leading cause of deaths in the state. The accidents caused an estimated loss of Rs4,757 crore in the last year.

Last year, a total of 2,540 persons died in road accidents due to over speeding and 85 due to drunk-driving.