KOCHI: The stretch between Metro Pillars 819 and 826 at SA Road in Elamkulam evokes ghastly memories of accidents that claimed eight young lives in nine motorcycle accidents since September 2020. TNIE looks at road mishaps, type of vehicles involved and reasons in detail
A Look at the list of accidents in Kerala in 2020 shows that motorcycles are the main culprits. But what is more alarming is the fact that youngsters, especially teenagers , are the victims of these mishaps mostly, causing irreparable damage to their families and friends. According to police data, 27,877 road accidents were reported in the state in 2020, claiming 2,979 lives. In these, 9,046 accidents involved motorcycles, killing 970 people. In comparison, 7,729 car accidents were reported, claiming 614 people. Scooters are the third deadliest, involved in 2,785 accidents that took 269 lives in Kerala last year.
An easy year for buses
Thanks to the Covid-induced lockdown, accidents involving buses that are infamous for their rash driving came down last year. While KSRTC buses were involved in 296 accidents that killed 52 people, private buses were involved in 713 accidents that claimed 105 lives.
Upendra Narayan, a road safety expert and visiting faculty at several academic institutions across the state including Kerala Police Academy, said motorcycles constitute as little as one per cent of the total vehicles in the world. Yet, these contribute to almost 20 per cent of the total accidents in the world. “There are several reasons for the increasing number of motorbike accidents.
First, the indisciplined and immature riding. A majority of bike riders are young. India has no specifications regarding the vehicles suitable for its roads. For example, our roads cannot accommodate a maximum speed of 100 km per hour (KMPH). For motorbikes, the limit is 60-70 KMPH. The bikes sold in India should be customised according to this,” he says. Upendra also pointed out that India lacks a proper licensing method.
“Does a driver get proper lessons regarding responsible driving during the driving classes? Even enforcement agency personnel don’t have full knowledge of traffic rules or management. A sub-inspector trainee at Kerala Police Academy gets only a single day class on traffic during his year-long training course,” he says. The statistics second Upendra’s claims. Of the 27,877 accidents, 19,364 were caused by driver’s fault. As many as 5,010 accidents occurred due to mistakes from drivers. The poor state of the roads caused only 40 accidents while rough weather led to 14 mishaps.
EERIE CASE OF THE METRO PILLARS
Speaking on the series of accidents that occurred between metro pillars 819 and 826 on SA Road, Shaji Madhavan, Enforcement Regional Transport Officer (RTO) of the Motor Vehicles Department (MVD) says all of them were high-speed collisions with the metro pillar. “In city limits, the permitted speed is 50 KMPH. However, in all the mishaps involving youngsters that happened at SA Road, the bikes were speeding at over 90 KMPH. Around 70 per cent of motorcycle fatalities are of youngsters.
All young SA accident victims were from economically backward families,” he said. A police officer on the condition of anonymity said that drink driving has increased after police stopped using breathalyser owing to Covid-19. “Usually, drunk driving charges are dropped from reports for helping the victim’s families. In Kerala, a majority of road accidents, especially those at night, happen due to drunken driving,” he said.