In 10 yrs, 46,550 lives lost in road accidents in Punjab

Tribune News Service

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Bathinda, June 17

As many as 56,959 accidents were reported and 46,550 persons were killed in road mishaps from 2011 to 2020 in the state, said a report compiled by the Punjab Road Safety and Traffic Research Centre.

In the report, overspeeding and driving on the wrong side were termed as the leading causes of deaths. It said on an average, eight traffic police personnel are deployed per lakh population in Punjab.

This report on analysis of road accidents in Bathinda district and road safety audit of accident black spots on the 10-km stretch of NH-54 crossing Bathinda city limits has been prepared by Parminder Singh of Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College, Ludhiana, and Sunil Sharma, Naresh Kumar Sharma, Keshav Raj Joshi of GGI, Ludhiana. The report was supervised by Road Safety Engineer-cum-Co-Founder SAFE Society Simranjeet Singh of Giani Zail Singh College of Engineering and Technology, Bathinda.

In Bathinda district, the report revealed that on an average 18 people lose their lives every month in road accidents. Around 55 per cent accidents were reported on the national highway.

Around 79 per cent of the accidents involved two-wheelers, pedestrians and cyclists.

Of the 47 black spots in Bathinda, 39 are on the national highway, four on the state highway, one on the district road and three on MC roads.

In the past three years, 191 people lost their lives and 237 were seriously injured in accidents on the black spots.

In the district as per the four-year data, maximum deaths were reported in head-on collisions followed by hit-and-run cases involving pedestrians.

Accidents due to stray animals are the leading cause of deaths in road accidents in the district. Further, maximum fatalities occurred between 6 pm to 9 pm in the district. It accounts for 28 per cent of total road accident fatalities in the past four years.

Speeding leading cause: Report

• 56,959 mishaps
• 46,550 killed
• 8 cops/L population

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