CHENNAI: In spite of intensified checking, Chennai leads the country in the highest number of drunk driving deaths.According to the National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB’s) ‘Accident and Suicide Report 2015’, 93 people died and 568 got injured in the capital city while driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Indeed, Chennai accounts for nearly one-fourth of drunk driving-related cases filed across the country in 2015.
“Unless stricter norms including hefty spot fines for traffic violations and driving licence cancellation for drunk driving are in place, it is hard to keep accidents under check,” said a senior traffic police official.
Besides this, overall the State leads in road accident fatalities. Nearly 13 per cent deaths due to traffic accidents were reported in Tamil Nadu. Out of the 17,376 such deaths, the majority were two-wheeler accident victims, followed by trucks, buses and SUVs.
Among the 53 mega cities, Chennai accounted for 9.3 per cent of total road accidents (7,328 out of 78,500 cases) followed by Delhi (7,148) and Bengaluru (5,001). Next to this, many accidents were reported near educational and religious institutions.
Contrary to the national trend, more road accidents took place in Tamil Nadu on the State Highways than National Highways. Cause wise analysis by the NCRB revealed that most of the accidents in Tamil Nadu were due to overspeeding (9,380) and overtaking at curves (3,948).
Road accidents have not spared even pedestrians, mostly in urban areas where pedestrian areas were shrinking. Next to Telangana, Tamil Nadu recorded most number of pedestrian accidents in cities (1,061) and out of this nearly one-fifth (204) died while being hit by speeding vehicles at pedestrians crossings.
Responding to this, a retired top police official said that road discipline in the city is poor. “Violation of lane-crossing rules is the primary reason for most accidents in urban areas,” the official added.
The traffic police official also said that unlike most states, Tamil Nadu citizens prefer private transport to public transport resulting in excess traffic increasing the chances of road accidents.
Suicides in State
Tamil Nadu continues to remain the second state with the highest number of suicides in the country, according to the recently released National Crime Records Bureau.
While Maharashtra reported 12.7 per cent of the total number of suicides in the country, Tamil Nadu trails closely behind with 11.8 percent of suicides, with a total of 15,777 deaths. The major cause of death in both Tamil Nadu and the country was family problems.
While all four metropolitan cities have overall shown a declining trend in the last few years, Chennai is the only city which saw a 2.7 percent increase.
The most vulnerable age group is 18-30, but while the ratio of men committing suicide is much higher than women the leading cause of death among women is a dowry, physical abuse and divorce. Daily wage earners comprised 17.8 percent of suicide deaths.
Farmer suicides
As farmer deaths have started to haunt the State over the last few days, according to NCRB 2015 report, Tamil Nadu comes seventh with 606 farmer suicides, with 604 of these being agricultural labourers.
Mirroring the general cause for suicides, the major cause of deaths among agricultural labourers is family problems but with regard to farmer cultivators, the cause continues to be debt and bankruptcy.
(With inputs from M Sathish, Johanna Deeksha)