‘Accidents peak from 6-9pm as tired people rush home’

Panaji: A greater proportion of accidents in Goa occurs late in the evening rather than deep into the night, said the director of transport, Rajan Satardekar.
“Statistically, more than 50% of the accidents are due to human error. Most of the accidents are therefore self-accidents, unfortunately,” he said.
“The peak time for accidents is 6pm to 9pm when people are tired and want to get home early.”
Offering a word of caution, Satardekar said that driving soon after work may make people feel drowsy. “People must be cautious and shouldn’t rush to leave early. Their minds are tired and they are physically exhausted too,” he said.
Over the past year, the directorate of transport has been keeping an eye on the road accident patterns in Goa and prominent black spots have been identified.
“We have digitized the entire road accident investigation mechanism. We have been using the integrated road accident database (i-RAD) since February 2022,” Satardekar said. “We have a year’s data that gives us analytics. Now, we have spot-wise data of the entire map of Goa.”
Speaking about traffic management and the issuance of challans for traffic violations, he said that enforcement is required to discipline commuters.
Several road accidents have been occurring in Goa over the past many days, with at least one road accident death occurring per day. TOI had reported that minister for transport Mauvin Godinho has given the PWD a 15-day deadline to install all infrastructure related to road safety, such as signage and CCTV cameras.
“We are going to issue a public notice about the cameras and people will be automatically challaned and fined for violations,” he had said. “All this is being done with the use of artificial intelligence. We are also initiating several other steps to curb accidents in the state.”
In addition, road safety activists in the state will be mobilising all stakeholders to get involved in addressing the issue, for the 7th UN Global Road Safety Week (UNGRSW) from May 15 to 21.