Highways in all 3 Hyderabad police zones are gateways to death

HYDERABAD: The year 2019 was one of the worst years with regard to road traffic safety, with 6,806 deaths (accidents) being recorded in the State. This spurred the Director General of Police M Mahender Reddy to declare 2020 as the year of Road Safety.

A closer look at the data suggests that 27 per cent of all road accident deaths come under the three police commissionerates, Hyderabad, Cyberabad and Rachakonda. A majority of the accidents are happening on National and State Highways.

The most notorious amongst these is the Vanasthalipuram division in Rachakonda where 161 lives were lost in 2019. The worst impacted area was Hayathnagar where 40 lives were snuffed out. Followed by this is the Alwal division of Cyberabad where 159 deaths were reported last year. The deaths were especially high at Medchal check post junction.  As many as 37 deaths were reported in Asif Nagar division under Hyderabad Commission-erate and 27 in Langar Houz and Golconda areas.  

In all these three areas, fatal accidents are high primarily due to the presence of highways, note police officials. “The Vanasthalipuram division has three highways — Srisailam, Nagarjuna Sagar and Vijayawada, where going over the speed limit is a huge concern. Accidents that happen due to human error on these stretches are also high here,” said Venkateshwara Rao, SHO of Vanasthalipuram Traffic police station.

A similar predicament prevails in Alwal limits which has the Nagpur Highway. “While speeding is a concern, a major issue is that of drunk driving and riders not wearing helmets. On these roads, chances of fatalities increase as it’s a high-speed passageway. Pedestrians also are not cautious in crossing on larger roads,” said Ravinder Reddy, SHO Alwal police.

Experts note that apart from the issues involving human error and mechanical defects, these limits are too big to handle given the manpower crunch. “Traffic police tend to be on VIP duties often and are unable to control violations or focus on accident mitigation,” noted Vinod Kamula, CEO, Indian Federation of Road Safety.