City police show ways to reduce traffic fatalities

Coimbatore: Deputy general of police J K Tripathy on Saturday said the city police have topped their counterparts in the state in reducing fatalities in road accidents.
As per the data available with city traffic police, only 24 people had lost their lives in road accidents in the city from January 1 to June 10 this year, compared to 60 in the corresponding period last year. Madurai and Salem city police were placed second and third, respectively, in this front.
R Mutharasu, city deputy commissioner of police (traffic), said regular monitoring of traffic violations has helped them reduce fatalities in road accidents. “We have 163 CCTV cameras at traffic signals across the city to identify traffic violators. We can easily track bikers without helmets and triple riders with their vehicle registration number. We will upload the details of violators, with the photo generated by CCTV cameras and fine amount, on Parivahan website. We have Police E-Eye app which helps even the general public to send us photos of traffic violations, which would also be uploaded on Parivahan website. Such actions have helped us reduce the accident rate in the city drastically.”
He said they have brought down fatalities in road accidents to 60%.
In Madurai city 36 people had lost their lives in road accidents during January 1-June 10 period this year, compared to 86 in the same period last year. The Madurai city police, who brought down fatalities to 55%, was placed second among their counterparts in seven cities. The Salem city police have bagged the third place by reducing fatalities to 28 from 53 last year.
The Chennai city police, who have brought down fatalities to 332 from 610 last year, were placed fourth, while the Tirupur city police, Tirunelveli city police, and Trichy police were placed in the next three positions.
Police officials said the lockdown was the main reasons for the drop in fatalities in road accidents. The state government has enforced lockdown from March 24. Most of the motorists did not use their vehicles till May 3. The lockdown norms were relaxed on May 4.