Cops take up review of black spots amid rising road accidents in UP's Prayagraj

PRAYAGRAJ: Rattled over the increasing road accidents both in fatal and non-fatal categories, senior police officials have taken up a review exercise of black spots or accident prone areas in four districts of the range.
Prayagraj has the highest 52 block spots, including five on national highway and one on state highway, followed by Fatehpur (24), Kaushambi ( 16) and Pratapgarh (11).
There are currently 40 black spots on national highways in the four districts, including Prayagraj (5), Kaushambi (9), Pratapgarh (7) and Fatehpur (19). Similarly, there are 12 black spots on state highways — Prayagraj (1), Pratapgarh (4), Fatehpur (2) and Kaushambi (5).
Inspector general of police (Prayargaj range) K P Singh told TOI, “We are looking for short and long-term measures to end black spots. We are consulting with other departments like RTO and PWD for the same.”
He said, “The status of each and every black spot located at national and state highways along with other connecting streets is being reviewed.... Cops are studying the nature of accidents, casualties, causes and associated issues before declaring it as an accident-prone area. These spots were finalised after looking into the history of a spot\area and number of accidents reported in the last three years.”
Traffic police officials are also busy studying the reasons and history of these specific areas where accidents had taken place more than three times.
Figures of range police revealed as many as 671 people have died in 1,184 road accidents between January 1 and June 15 this year in the four districts of Prayagraj range. A total of 671 persons, including 249 in Prayagraj, 136 in Pratapgarh, 191 in Fatehpur and 95 in Kaushambi, lost their lives between January 1 and June 15. In the same period, 689 peoples were also injured — Prayagraj (334), Pratapgarh (124), Fatehpur ( 153) and Kaushambi (78).
Traffic cops claimed that speed limit violation and rash driving are two prime factors behind accidents at these black spots and number of new black spots are likely to be added in the list.