As per the data, a total of 5,194 accidents were registered in the year 2020 while 3,866 people lost their lives in road accidents in the same year. (File) Punjab has witnessed a significant decline of 15 per cent in road accident fatalities and 18 per cent reduction in road accidents during year 2020 as compared to 2019, Punjab Director General of Police Dinkar Gupta said here on Tuesday.
Gupta said that during the ongoing Road Safety Month (January 18 to February 17), the Punjab Police organised 521 road safety camps and 542 road safety seminars besides holding 152 awareness rallies across the state and sensitised around 1.33 lakh students from schools and colleges and 1.28 lakh citizens about the road safety and traffic rules.
Gupta said that to institutionalise the road safety, a pilot project, “Accident Resolution Team- ART”, was initiated in the Patiala district under which the teams led by the Station House Officer (SHO) visited and inspected the black spots in their respective jurisdictions. The Patiala police has formulated 25 such ARTs and as many as 20 rectifications had already been realised, mostly on Patiala-Sirhind road, resulting in a remarkable decline in the accident rate, the DGP said.
As per the data, a total of 5,194 accidents were registered in the year 2020 while 3,866 people lost their lives in road accidents in the same year, the DGP added.
“A standard operating procedure (SOP) to prevent deaths due to stray animals has been formulated by the Punjab Police and cattle accident black spots are also being identified,” the DGP said, adding that 25 such black spots mostly in the Malwa belt have been earmarked and reflective tapes are being tied around the necks of stray cattle to avert accidents.
“The Punjab Police also has a proud distinction of achieving a 22 per cent decline of road accident deaths by 2020 on culmination of the decade of action for Road Safety 2011-2020, as proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in March 2010,” the DGP said.
Punjab Traffic Advisor Navdeep Asija said that “after analysing the Road Accident Database Management System, as many as 391 black spots were identified in Punjab of which 100 black spots have already been rectified by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) while 31 black spots are being corrected by the State Public Works Department (PWD)”.
ADGP (Traffic) Sharad Satya Chauhan said that “the traffic wing has established a first-of- its-kind Road Safety and Traffic Research Centre in Mohali, which uses scientific tools of artificial intelligence and machine learning to find appropriate solutions to curb the road accident fatalities in the state”. He said that “to strengthen scientific road crash investigation, the Punjab Police has also in-house developed Crash Investigation Vehicle at the Centre”.