Bhopal roads biggest killer, most casualties occur in Jan each year
   Date :30-Dec-2019

Bhopal roads biggest kill
 A car damaged completely in road accident in city.
 
By Deepak Tyagi :
 
Roads in Bhopal turned out to be the most fatal for commuters in the passing year 2019 which recorded a spurt in the number of road accidents. Overall 234 people lost their lives in 3,056 road mishaps in the State capital out of which 2,402 persons escaped with injuries. Two-wheelers continued to be the biggest killer vehicles followed by trucks and lorries and by cars whereas January is the month when the highest numbers of accidents are reported compared to other months of the year.
 
These scary statistics have come to light from the city traffic police data and going by the average data of the past three years, at least one accident is reported every 40 minutes and every 9th accident resulted in a death in the year 2018 in the state capital. In the year 2019, 28 people lost their lives in 337 accidents reported in January itself. And this was 28% more compared to average deaths due to accidents reported in all the 11 months of 2019. Overall, from January 1 to December 2 this year, a total of 234 deaths due to accidents were reported in Bhopal.
 
Thus, on an average, 21 deaths were reported every month. But in January, it increased to 28. As per official records in Bhopal, a total of 335 accidents were reported in January 2017, but if we go by the average number of accidents reported each month in 2017, it is only 283. Similarly, in 2018, a total of 346 accidents were reported in January, but the average monthly accidents reported that year were only 292. In January 2019, 337 accidents were reported compared to the monthly average of 270 accidents reported so far in this year. The city is plagued with traffic issues including encroachments on busy roads and illegal parking. Despite tall claims by traffic police, it is evident that busy city areas including commercial hub MP Nagar and posh market and residential areas like Hoshangabad road, Habibganj, TT Nagar, Jehangirabad, Koh-e-Fiza and Nishatpura have once again emerged as accident-prone zones. High number of accidents were also reported from prime residential areas including Bag Sewania, Govindpura and Misrod. As per the data the roads in city outskirts including Berasia, Eintkheri, Misrod, Bilkhiria and Ratibad have emerged as the most fatal zones.
 
Traffic police have completely failed to take corrective measures to rectify the black spots (hazard prone zones) which have been for the past many years. The traffic police make a list of black spots on which the most fatal accidents took place during last three years. Recently, traffic police have identified nine black spots after analysing the road accident data of 2017, 2018 and 2019. Seeing the records, city traffic police is gearing up to reduce the number of accidents in the first month of new year. “We have already started analysing the data of accidents reported in January in previous years, the spots are being identified, the age group of victims who met with accident, the causes that led to the accidents, everything is being looked into so that an action plan could be prepared to reduce the number of accidents in coming January,” Additional Superintendent of Police (traffic, Pradeep Singh Chouhan said. He added, “For New Year celebrations, we would deploy additional force from December 28 itself, a request for providing 50-60 additional personnel has already been sent.
 
Our focus is on curbing overspeeding, drunk driving, usage of seat belt and helmets.” “With all the precautionary measures in place, we are working hard to ensure that less accidents take place in January,” he said. Though there is a spurt in the number of accidents in January every year in the state capital, being winter season and therefore having poor visibility, mishaps are likely. However, going by the report released by the national crime records bureau for year 2016, no accident was reported in Bhopal that year due to weather conditions. In fact, it was due to overspeeding that 3,218 accidents took place that year, says the report. The maximum number of road fatalities was due to increase in the movement of heavy vehicles on a number of highways connecting the city with its suburbs, as well as a number of liquor shops on city outskirts that has resulted in an increase in the number of drunk driving cases.