MADURAI
Transport Commissioner Tenkasi S. Jawahar on Tuesday instructed officials from the Departments of Police, Transport and Highways to conduct joint inspection of accident spots where fatalities are reported.
Addressing a road safety review meeting with officials of various departments from Madurai and Virudhunagar districts here, Mr. Jawahar said only when officials made a joint inspection they could find various factors that caused fatalities and take remedial steps to prevent recurrence.
He was responding to the presentations made by the Collectors T.G. Vinay (Madurai) and R. Kannan (Virudhunagar), in which it was revealed that the officials had made joint inspections only in 11 of the 438 fatal road accidents in Madurai district. In Virudhunagar, the joint inspection was conducted only in one case.
When S. Davidson Devasirvatham, Commissioner of Police, Madurai City, listed a number of road and junction improvement works to prevent accidents, Mr. Jawahar asked the officials from Madurai Corporation and State Highways to send their plan of action on this issue so that he could get required funds for the works.
The Transport Commissioner said concerted efforts taken by various departments had helped bring down the number of fatalities in the State from 17,218 in 2016 to 9,797 in 2019. “We have saved the lives of not just 7,421 persons, but the the lives of bread winners of as many families,” he said.
The State had targeted to achieve “zero-accident” by 2030 by making 2 lakh km of various types of roads, on which 2.80 crore vehicles were plying, safer. “At least 2% of the GDP was being lost because of accidents,” he said.
Pramod Kumar, Inspector General of Police (Traffic and Road Safety), said Tamil Nadu had won an award from the Centre for reducing most number of accidents in 2019. “Despite that a lot of lives in the productive age group were being lost in accidents,” he said.
Two-wheelers-related accidents accounted for the highest number of fatalities, he said, adding wearing of helmets by two-wheeler riders had 80% chance of saving lives. Besides undertaking road engineering and enforcing safety measures, reducing response time for ambulances to reach accident spots to 14 minutes too had helped in saving a lot of lives, he added.
Mr. Pramod Kumar said the Collectors should make periodical road safety audit to arrive at short-term, mid-term and long-term solutions for making the roads safer.