The Hindu : Tackling road mishaps the Chennai way

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 24, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad

Tackling road mishaps the Chennai way

More than a death every day. The most alarming aspect of these deaths is that they are planned and executed without any compunction by criminals. In essence, there is no criminal element involved in these deaths. They are purely accidental deaths for which a host of causative factors can be detailed. Factors can be analysed and steps initiated to check the recurrence of these road accidents.

But we realise that precious little has been done to check the road accidents in the twin cities. Reasons may be aplenty. The multi-department coordination, which is always found lacking, can be one of them. But evolving a mechanism to prevent the road accidents is not indeed an insurmountable task.

While the Hyderabad police continue to struggle to find ways to reduce the number of road accidents, they have found their Chennai counterparts succeeding, to a large extent, in reducing the fatal accidents through a mixture of measures. Needless to say, the measures are replicable and the city police top brass is now actively considering implementing similar measures in Hyderabad too.

Chennai and Hyderabad certainly have something in common. Both cities have almost similar number of vehicles plying on the road, estimated to be around 14 lakhs. But the biggest difference between both is that while Chennai has more than 1,800 km of road network, Hyderabad has just about 250 km, meaning the roads in Hyderabad are more congested.

Though the accident rate is high in Chennai, traffic managers have been able to reduce the fatalities by about 200 (708 deaths in 2001 and 500 in 2002. 5,000 road accidents in 2001 brought down to 3,000 in 2002) through a slew of measures, the credit for which should be attributed to G.V.G. Sastry, Joint Commissioner of Police. This reduction, by all means, is certainly an achievement, says K. Sreenivasa Reddy, DCP of Hyderabad Traffic Police.

Mr. Reddy, who has recently visited Chennai to study the measures, points out that the crucial input to reduce the accidents has been the integrated approach in investigating accident cases by the traffic police teams. With the investigation being entrusted to the traffic police, unlike in Hyderabad city, the teams compulsorily file an analysis report and suggest remedial measures like erection of road signs, removal of encroachments, widening of roads, etc.

The other aspect is implementing area-specific strategies in enforcement of rules. Depending on the analysis report, specific drives have been taken up on specific roads. Enforcement of rules during night time has also yielded excellent results in checking drunken driving, overspeeding, non-use of headlights and other violations.

Mr. Reddy says the Chennai police have succeeded in involving citizens in traffic regulation. The Citizen for Safe Roads (CSR) concept, where people voluntarily help the traffic police in controlling violations, has come as a real boon. Another innovative measure is that the Chennai police have set up wireless sets in various private and Government hospitals so that whenever a road accident is reported the hospital staff can be contacted and ambulances sent. With the victims getting proper and immediate medical help many lives have been saved. From the Police Department side, motivating the constabulary and officers has been another success for the Chennai police.

After the study, the Hyderabad Traffic police are now trying to replicate the exercise, but a major decision to be taken is to entrust the job of investigating the accidents to the traffic wing. Mr. Reddy says extra effort should be made to save lives during the golden hour by providing medical help since about 30 per cent of the fatal accidents take place during nights.

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