Karnataka: Belagavi tops in road accident deaths among districts in 2021-2022

BENGALURU: With 816 fatalities, road accidents in Belagavi district claimed the maximum lives in the state during 2021-2022. It is followed by Bengaluru city (633), Tumakuru (596), Mysuru (510) and Bengaluru district (507).

Across the state, 34,394 accidents were reported in 2021-2022 which resulted in 9,868 fatalities and 40,483 injuries. This means an average of 94 accidents and 27 deaths were reported every day in the state during that period.
Belagavi city police commissioner MB Boralingaiah said: "It's geographically a big district. We are identifying blackspots, where the maximum accidents are reported and submitting the list to agencies like NHAI and PWD. We're also putting additional signage in those areas."
On Thursday, nine people, including two children, were killed and over 14 injured in an accident in Tumakuru. In June, seven people died while 14 others were injured when a multi-utility vehicle (MUV) ferrying dailywage workers fell into a canal in Belagavi. A majority of the accidents are reported on national and state highways. In fact, many of them are caused by private transporters carrying excess passengers.
Traffic expert MN Srihari said: "There is no lane uniformity on NH4 (Bengaluru-Tumakuru highway). In some places, it is very narrow and wider in other areas. When four lanes suddenly become two lanes, many motorists find it difficult to manage the speed. Also, there are many villages along the road, so pedestrians and cyclists often haphazardly cross the road and many motorists who tend to avoid them meet with accidents. In Tumakuru, most accidents are at night, and Kallembella is one of the accident-prone areas."
On reasons for accidents between Bengaluru and Belagavi, he said: "Most of the drivers are from Maharashtra. Road conditions and driving patterns in Maharashtra are entirely different from Karnataka. They often tend to overspeed and fail to understand road signages and result in accidents."
Ashish Verma, convener, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Sustainable Transportation Lab, said: "Identifying blackspots is one aspect but human factors, vehicle-road worthiness, occupancy, etc also play a major role. RTOs are deep-rooted in corruption; there are many loopholes in the driving licensing process or ensuring fitness of vehicles. Proper training should be given to make our citizens safe and conscious drivers, but there is corruption involved in issuing DL, which also affects driving standards. Private operators are focusing on maximising their profit so they are compromising on the safety by deploying aged vehicles and carrying excess passengers. There is also no proper enforcement of rules by the transport department to crack down on such vehicles."
A transport department official said: "Major causes of such fatal accidents are over-speeding, drunk driving, lack of lane discipline among commuters, drivers falling asleep due to excessive driving hours, faulty road design, blackspots, etc."
He said drunk drivers are involved in accidents that occur mainly at night. Accident spots/zones are being identified and action is being taken for road-safety measures in those areas," the depatment official said.
In 2021-22, the transport department suspended driving licences of 1,416 motorists for drunk driving and 6,180 licences suspended for other offences. Notices have been issued in the remaining 1,587 cases for other violations.
Another reason for the accidents is carrying of overload in goods vehicles by violating permit conditions. In 2021-22, as many as 7.19 lakh goods vehicles have been checked. Of this, 6,899 cases have been booked and 1,434 vehicles seized and Rs 11.9 crore fine collected from them.