VIJAYAWADA: Despite conducting various public awareness programmes such as 'No Accident Day', 'Wash and Go', helmet drive, drunk and drive enforcement, No Cell phone driving campaigns, rectifying black spots at identified places and other Motor Vehicle violation campaigns by the Krishna district police, number of road accidents and fatalities have increased as compared to the previous year, with no positive response from the public.
The initiatives proposed and implemented for public safety have failed to serve the purpose of reducing the number of road accidents in the district. According to statistics obtained from the Krishna district police (excluding Vijayawada police commissionerate limits), out of 849 road accidents reported from June 1, 2020 to May 31, 2021, 361 persons were killed and 935 injured as against 837 cases from June 1, 2019 to May 31, 2020 in which 275 persons died and 1,099 sustained injuries.
It is observed that the road accidents are high in the months of December, January, February, March and April as compared to other months, with an average of 80 per month.
To reduce the accidents in the rural areas, the district police along with Transport department officials and other stakeholders conducted 'No Accident Day' wherein teams of traffic police and transport officials visited all roads in the district to identify the black spots where number of mishaps were reported in the last two years.
“We have managed to repair over 40 such black spots out of 100 during the lockdown period. But there is no reduction in accidents and fatalities. Though we are taking extra care and making public participate in the awareness campaigns, they have failed to adhere to road safety norms,” a senior official said.
The officials noticed that most of the accidents are due to drunk driving, rash driving, cell phone driving and driving on the wrong direction of the road. "We aren’t sparing even cops when don’t wear a helmet, while driving a two-wheeler. So far 50 cops were fined for riding twowheelers without helmets," the official said.