VISAKHAPATNAM: The efforts put in by the authorities to create awareness on road safety appears to have failed to check the road accidents in the city. The records suggest that the year has seen a steep rise in the accidents when compared to the past few years.
As many as 1,398 accidents were registered from Jan 1 to Dec 20, 2016 in the city limits, while 2015 and 2014 saw 1,286 and 1,248 cases respectively. As many as 351 persons died, while around 1,420 were injured in road mishaps this year during the same period, while 372 died and 1,335 were injured last year.
According to Visakhapatnam Traffic police, around 40 percent of the accidents were involved with two-wheelers and among the total accidents, around 70 percent occurred on the NH 16.
Since 2012, as many as 1,858 persons have died and 6,344 have been injured in road accidents in the city. Despite road safety awareness campaigns, counselling of minors on driving rules and crackdown in the drunk driving, it seems the measures have failed to yield the desired results. And, the police blame negligence, rash driving and over-speeding for the spurt in road mishaps.
Police also add that the number of vehicles is on the rise. By 2015-end, as per city police records, there were around 10.6 lakh vehicles and a minimum of 90,000 to one lakh vehicles have been added to the city traffic every year. So by this year-end, the number of vehicles could be around 11.5 to 12 lakh, the traffic personnel say.
Additional DCP (Traffic) K Mahendra Patrudu said raids are being conducted on a daily basis on motorists violating traffic norms. Around 3.72 lakh cases have been registered this year so far for various offences including minors driving without licence, triple riding, over-speeding, cell phone driving and riding without helmet.