'App soon to reduce road accidents in Bihar'

Faryal Rumi | TNN | Updated: Apr 27, 2020, 10:55 IST

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PATNA: The state transport department is preparing a comprehensive action plan to identify more accident-prone spots at micro level in a bid to reduce road accidents and fatalities in state.
Transport secretary Sanjay Kumar Agarwal has formed a four-member team in each district to identify the locations where ten or more road accidents and five deaths took place in a year. The district magistrate concerned would lead the team in their respective districts. District transport officer, traffic cop and road engineer would be the other members of the team.
Agarwal told this newspaper on Sunday that there are 115 black spots across the state where 10 or more deaths were reported in a year. “To further reduce the road accidents, we have formed a team and asked them to identify the spots where five deaths and more than 10 accidents took place in a year,” he said.
“Based on the data, we will be able to work on 4 Es of road safety — education, enforcement, engineering and emergency care. The action plan lays stress on ways to reduce fatalities. Transport officials and cops will keep a watch on accident-prone sites and prevent recurrence of mishaps in these places while engineers would analyse and rectify the road engineering faults. The violators will be penalized if they are driving recklessly. This way, we will cover all the important aspects,” Agarwal said.
For the real-time data of road accidents and fatalities and quick response by the team, the department is also planning to launch a mobile application — ‘Road Safety App’. The trial run of the app would take place in the next 15 days.
Elaborating the features and use of the mobile app, Agarwal said last one year accident data, reasons, spots and vehicles would be uploaded by its developers. “After the app is be launched, it would show the real-time data of accidents and deaths. Besides, it will show the black spots and its longitude. The local police station under which the accident took place would have to inform the DTO, who would upload the information to this app in 24 hours,” he said.
The transport secretary further said in future, even the common people can inform the department about the road accidents through this mobile app. “They can also lodge complaints against the traffic cops or about road safety norms and their problems,” he said.