On an average, 10 persons died every day in accidents on Punjab roads in the year 2020. For no less than 3,866 persons, the journey ended before their destination. In fact, the state witnessed 14 road accidents everyday during the previous year, which will be remembered for the outbreak of novel coronavirus and the resultant months-long nationwide lockdown.
As per the data, a total of 5,194 accidents were registered in 2020, while 3,866 people lost their lives in road accidents in the same year.
The figures assume significance as the state authorities are claiming that the road accidents and consequential fatalities have witnessed a dip of 18 % and 15%, respectively, as compared to the figures during 2019. And that too, when the vehicular movement was hampered, for almost 3 months, due to lockdowns.Sharing the figures, the state Director General of Police Dinkar Gupta said: “The Punjab Police has a proud distinction of achieving a 22% decline of road accidents deaths by 2020 on culmination of the ‘Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020’, as proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in March 2010.” Notably, there was an overall increase of 10 percent in the road accidents deaths in the same period.
Gupta said that during the ongoing Road Safety Month (January 18 to February 17), the Punjab Police have organized 521 road safety camps and 542 road safety seminars besides holding 152 awareness rallies across the state and sensitized around 1.33 lakh students from schools and colleges and 1.28 lakh citizens about the road safety and traffic rules.
He said that to institutionalize the road safety, a pilot project “Accident Resolution Team-ART” was initiated in the Patiala district under which the teams led by the Station House Officer (SHO) visits and inspects the black spots in their respective jurisdictions.
Patiala police have formulated 25 such ARTs and as many as 20 rectifications have already been realised, mostly on Patiala-Sirhind road, resulting in a remarkable decline in the accident rate.
A standard operating procedure (SOP) to prevent deaths due to stray animals has been formulated by the Punjab Police and cattle accident black spots are also being identified, said the DGP, adding that 25 such black spots mostly in the Malwa belt have been earmarked and reflective tapes are being tied around the necks of stray cattle to avert accidents.
The State’s Traffic Advisor Navdeep Asija said that after analyzing the Road Accident Database Management System, as many as 391 black spots were identified in Punjab of which 100 black spots have already been rectified by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) while 31 black spots are being corrected by the State PWD.
ADGP Traffic Sharad Satya Chauhan said that the traffic wing has established a first of its kind Road Safety and Traffic Research Centre in Mohali, which uses scientific tools of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to find appropriate solutions to curb the road accidents fatalities in the state.
“To strengthen scientific road crash investigation, the Punjab Police have also in-house developed ‘Crash Investigation Vehicle’ at the Centre,” he said.