Hyderabad: Experts in the Transport sector are expressing concern over the large number of deaths due to road accidents in Telangana State, as also country-wide. Telangana is one of the States that accounted for more number of road accidents and deaths. Road accidents are one of the biggest causes of deaths in the country.
Statistics released by the Telangana Railways & Road Safety wing indicated that as many as 6,806 persons lost their lives and another 22,265 people were injured due to road accidents in the State during 2019. There was a three per cent increase in the accidents and deaths rates over the year 2018, during which 6,603 persons died and 21,697 injured. Over-speeding of vehicles was stated to be the main and major cause for this sorry state of affairs. Officials said some 11.31 lakh over-speed cases were registered during the year and a fine of Rs 92.36 crore was collected from the offenders, apart from other traffic violations like drunken driving and minors at the wheel.
It is a matter of irony that the State Government was not concentrating on stringent measures to stop over-speeding vehicles and prevent accidents, but is content with just imposing penalties. One fails to understand as to why some of the State governments, including Telangana, have opted against enforcing the amended Motor Vehicles Act (MVA), passed by Parliament with an objective of deterring the vehicle drivers from rash and negligent driving and violation of other traffic rules.
When the amended Act was publicized in August/September last year, it is reported that the number of accidents came down considerably during September. But, after the Telangana State government announced that it will not enforce the amended Law, the number of accidents increased from October. This shows there was urgent need to enforce the stringent amended Act and deter the offenders from violating the rules, particularly over-speeding. Bad state of roads, lack of proper sign boards are also among the causes for accidents and the government should act in these matters.
CAP ON PRIVATE VEHICLES
So far as the Government of India is concerned, apart from the making all the States to enforce the amended MV Act to reduce accidents, there is need to take into consideration the opinion expressed by experts in public transport sector and Director of Centre for Excellence and Urban Transport Prof. Shivanand Swamy nearly two years ago and other environmentalists on the urgent need to putting a cap on the number of private cars and vehicles in all the major cities as well as in the country. Prof. Swamy had said that Singapore and some other countries have also acted in this direction, and emphasized that increase in number of private cars would cause not only traffic problems but also pollution and health hazards. Environmentalists feel it is unfortunate that the Centre was not taking note of such warnings.
