VIJAYAWADA: Expressing concern over rise in road mishaps in the State, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has directed officials to go for third party audit of every accident to know whether it is the fault of vehicle, driver or faulty road engineering work.
Chairing the Road Safety Council meeting at the Secretariat on Wednesday, he expressed concern over the death of 6,433 people in 15,462 road accidents this year so far. He was also worried over the State standing in 8th place in road accidents in the country.
The officials informed the Chief Minister that two wheelers were involved in one third of road accidents and cars and two-wheelers in 53% of accidents. Naidu directed them to study the reasons for high incidence of accidents in Nellore, Tirupati, Palnadu, Annamayya and Kakinada districts. Of the total accidents, 79% occurred due to overspeed, 3% due to wrong side driving, and 1% due to cellphone talk while driving. Of the total, 42% of accidents occurred on national highways, and 21% on State highways. Speed governors should be set up as per RTA rules.
CCTV cameras should be installed for every half kilometre on both national and State highways. As per the Supreme Court Committee road safety guidelines, steps should be taken to prevent accidents.
Modern driving training centres should be set up, and the works of the driving training centres at Adoni and Darsi should be completed at the earliest. Black spots identified at 680 places on national highways should also be rectified, he said.
Naidu directed the officials to act tough on unauthorised alteration of private travel sleeper buses. He asked the officials to warn those who violate rules at first, to bring awareness among them. Automated testing centres should be set up to check the fitness of vehicles.
Road safety programmes should be organised on the third Sunday of every month in districts. Police, transport, R&B and other related departments should work in coordination to prevent road accidents, he said.