In a bid to curb road accidents, the Delhi Transport Department has constituted three major committees consisting of nodal officers and members from the Delhi Traffic Police, Public Works Department (PWD) and experts from Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) and School of Planning and Architecture (SPA). The committee is named as ‘District Fatal Accident Investigation Team’ and ‘Vulnerable Road Users’ committee.
The District fatal accidents investigation team will investigate the accident and the other committee will prepare guidelines for the vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, cyclist and two wheeler riders.
The committees will work together to provide better solution to curb road accidents and to find out the cause behind the incident occurred. “Whenever an accident will take place be it small or major, these committee will be informed as soon the incident occurs. Following which, the district investigation team will visit that site and investigate by finding out the reasons, problem, and shortcomings on that particular site/road.
The members will also keep a tab on the hospitals where the victim is admitted and to see if the victim died on the spot or after reaching the hospital,” said Sewa Ram, professor at SPA, a member of this team and chair of ‘Vulnerable Road Users’ committee”.
“The vulnerable road user committee will work on the pedestrians, cyclist and scooter/motor cycle riders.
“This committee will prepare guidelines and accident management plan following the reports and surveys done by the investigation team,” said Ram.
As per the officials this will be the first of its kind initiative to curb the road accidents. “This will be the first time that such initiative has been taken by the Government as till now none has investigated a site after an accident took place. This, initiative will help the Government to make a better plan and policy as well as increase the research opportunity as these committee consists members all the concerned departments: the creator, manager, implementing agency and the experts/ scientist,” said Ram.
“This initiative will not only help to curb road accidents, it will also help to improve the road layout, design and infrastructure and will help the government to create better policy and transport facility,” said Dr S Velmurugan another member of ‘Vulnerable Road Users’ committee.
As per the data shared by the Delhi Traffic police, there was a slight dip in the total number of road accidents in 2018 in comparison to 2017. However, the fatal accident in the city has been increased as compared to the previous years. In 2018, a total number of 6515 accidents took place last year out of which 1657 were fatal accidents while it was 1565 fatal accidents out of total 6673 in 2017.
Further, last year 6086 persons were injured, 1690 persons were killed, 4783 were simple accidents and 75 non-injured.
“Despite the commissioning of the metro in Delhi- National Capital Region (NCR), both vehicular and human population is growing with registration of 7 lakh vehicles every year.
Further, 42.86 percentage of persons killed in the accidents are pedestrians and 39.5 percent are scooters/motor vehicle riders,” said a Government official.
The official also added that the road accidents are tending to increase in the mid-night from 8 pm to 2 am. “National Highways and major roads of the city are more accident prone than the due to heavy movement of heavy commercial vehicles as well as others,” added the official.
