End of the road?

End of the road?
By: Madhusudan Maney Date: 2010-02-08 Place: Mumbai




With 1,500 private vehicles released on the streets every day, the average speed has come down and so have the number of accidents

In what seems like an ironic blessing in disguise, movement of the city's traffic at a snail's pace has reduced the number of accidents in the city, as compared to the previous two years.

One of the biggest reasons for the bumper-to-bumper traffic is the number of private vehicles that are added to the city roads every day. On an average, nearly 1,500 private vehicles are released on the streets on a daily basis.

Not only does that add to congestion on the roads but also automatically decreases the speed of vehicles drastically. Reduction in the speed of vehicles has an impact on the number of rash driving incidents and accidents.


Jammed: Bangloreans battle traffic jams everyday. Pic/Vinod Kumar T


15 kph
The average speed of vehicles in the city

Numbers at work

In the year 2007, there were a total of 8,426 accidents registered, of which 957 were fatal killing 981 people, and 7,469 were non-fatal injuring 6,591 people.

In 2008, 7,772 accidents were registered, of which 864 were fatal, killing 892 people. The same year 6,908 non-fatal accidents left 6,150 people injured. In 2009, 6,875 cases were registered out of which 737 were fatal killing 761 persons; 6,138 non-fatal injuring 5,668 people.

In January 2010, 534 accidents were reported, of which 50 were fatal, killing 55 people; 484 accidents were non-fatal, injuring 471 persons.

Compared to previous years, the number of accidents have marginally declined. When compared to 2007 and 2008, the number of accidents have reduced by 654, and when compared to 2008 and 2009, the number is reduced by 897.

However, traffic experts feel that it's too early to comment on the decline in the accident-rate this year.

Traffic expert Prof M N Sreehari said, "There are a few reasons for the drop in the accident rate. Traffic education and awareness programmes are going on everywhere and people are getting more knowledge on traffic issues. People are scared these days because cameras have been installed at many traffic junctions.

Also, the police are very strict and vigilant, so the traffic is also in order."

He added, "Traffic in the city is increasing everyday and there is a lot of congestion, hence the average speed of the vehicles has come down to 15 kms per hour. Apart from this, there is a lot of construction work going on all over the city like Metro etc. Also when the rate of accidents decline, it boosts the image of the police."