To check road accidents in Himachal Pradesh which has a dubious record, the State police has identified 314 accident prone black spots where over 4,000 accidents have taken place from 2006-2012.
In the absence of rail and air transport, Himachal Pradesh depends largely on road transport network and due to the hilly treacherous terrains it has numerous such ‘black spots’ where the probability of fatal accidents is very high causing loss of life and property. Himachal Police keeps on making identification of such points which is cause of worries due to fatal accidents.
On an average over 1,000 lives are lost in fatal accidents in a year, in the State despite several attempts made by State Government to check the road accidents. In order to identify the accident prone black spots in the State, the first ever survey was conducted by Railways and traffic wing of Himachal Police in 2006 and identified 536 such spots based on the pattern of road traffic accidents from 2001-2005.
The suggestions of survey were given to the PWD department of the state which developed these spots and the move helped in checking the road accidents especially on these black spots, reducing the figure of fatal accidents in the State. Now a fresh survey has been conducted by the traffic wing of Himachal Pradesh police and has identified another 314 black spots in the State where 4,488 accidents have taken place between 2006-2012 including 1408 casualties and 6,844 injuries.
The fresh survey was conducted under the supervision of IG Ashok Sharma based on the pattern of road accidents in these spots. “The fresh survey reports with suggestions will be submitted to the State Government for instruction to PWD for development of these black spots which will help in reduction in road accidents,” said DGP B Kamal Kumar.