While road crashes are overwhelmingly caused by human error, the untapped potential to prevent road mishaps and fatalities lies with dealing with the road infrastructure itself.
With an aim to make roads 100-per cent signage-compliant, the Transport Department is starting an initiative of road signage audit.
Simple road engineering interventions like provision of appropriate road markings and traffic signs, minor layout changes in the road junctions are proven measures to significantly reduce road accidents. Road signage helps drivers by giving them warnings in case of hazards.
Faulty road signage and signals are often responsible for massive traffic jams and accidents. Many times, road signs are wrongly placed, hidden, bungled, missing or just plain wrong.
A small sample audit of road signage and marking on SH-10 (Biju Expressway) from Deokaranpur to Keseibahal, a 50-km stretch in Sundargarh district, was conducted with the help of experts.
Based on the findings of the pilot project, the department has decided to scale up the initiative. It has been decided to conduct audit of road markings and signage for 3,000 km of roads across the State.