For Sathyamoorthy, a civil engineer, weaving his bike through the congested city traffic, continues to remain a mammoth task besides his routine work as a consultant. The first thing he does on spotting a Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) bus on the roads is to stay away from its course. It’s no premonition but sheer precaution. Such is the perception of almost every other road user in the city.
One need not scout for any reason for MTC has a reputation of terrorising the road users and the fact-file on accidents bear testimony to this. Every year, it snuffs out the lives of at least 100 persons year and this has been the track record for the last five years.
According to data accessed by CE, there were 103 fatal accidents caused by the fleet of MTC, in which 105 persons were killed during last year. Besides, the MTC fleet also caused 351 non-fatal accidents, injuring 381 persons mostly because of rash and negligent driving in the same year.
Overall, the MTC fatalities accounted for about 10 per cent of the total road accident fatalities caused by the government buses that accounted for 1,280 deaths across the State.
And in 2011, the Corporation drivers caused 112 fatal accidents, which also saw marginal rise in the number of casualties which stood at 115 and 49 of them were under the age group of 29 years.
Similarly, during 2010, the MTC fleet caused 106 fatal accidents, in which 108 persons were killed and 34 of them were under 29 years of age,
The trend has been consistent with the MTC. In 2009, 109 fatal accidents took place in which a total of 109 were killed. Among them,34 of them belonged to the below-29 age group. In the current year, up to July 25, the MTC fleet had killed 62 persons in 62 fatal accidents.
The number of non-fatal accidents also point to the alarming numbers as the Corporation was responsible for 384 non-fatal accidents, in which 340 persons were injured in 2009 and it stood at 351 accidents. 315 persons were injured in those accidents in the next year.
Thus far this year, 215 non fatal accidents were reported and 203 persons were injured until July 25.
Deputy Commissioner (Traffic Planning) Sivanantham told City Express that the road users including MTC crew ignored the traffic signage deliberately, which he said was the main reason for the accidents.
“Had they had some self-discipline, the accidents could have been avoided. The discipline doesn’t start on the roads, it starts from home and had to prevail until the road user reach the destination,” he said.