Fatal accidents fall by 19 per cent in 2020; traffic violations in Delhi up to 1.38 crore

NEW DELHI: While the pandemic-induced lockdown might have brought down the number of fatal accidents in the national capital for the first time in the last 30 years, overall traffic rules violations increased in 2020. There were 1,163 fatal accidents reported in 2020 a 19 per cent drop as compared to 1,433 such incidents in 2019.

However, Delhi Traffic Police recorded over 1.38 crore traffic violations in 2020 in comparison to over 1.05 crore in 2019. A total of 37,50,263 court challans and 13,22,623 compounding challans were issued in 2020, while the numbers were 10,06,684 and 52,74,957 respectively in 2019.

"Challans were not issued in the lockdown due to COVID-19 precautions and guidelines but the traffic police prosecuted the violators online and sent court challans and notices," said Special Commissioner (Traffic) Taj Hassan.

According to Delhi Police, the amount collected via these challans and notices was 30 per cent higher in comparison to 2019 thanks to the hike in fines after the amendments in the Motor Vehicle Act. The police issued challans and notices worth Rs 124.16 crore in 2020.

"The traffic police focussed on two areas - congestion where we ensure that the traffic moves smoothly without any obstruction and accidents where we ensure that people obey the traffic rules to reduce accidents on roads," the senior official said.

The focus areas of enforcement were unauthorised parking, dangerous driving, without helmet pillion riding and triple riding. To reduce accidents, the police have adopted strategies like dynamic deployment, road engineering solutions and road safety awareness campaigns. "Whenever we find faulty roads or changes to be made for the safety of pedestrians and reduce road accidents, we send out proposals to PWD for changes," said the official.

Delhi Police has also installed a real-time traffic signal control system, Red Light Violation Detection and speed check cameras to check junction behaviour and traffic violations, centralised command and control centre and IP-based PA systems at traffic junctions.