Ina remarkable achievement in road safety, Punjab has witnessed a significantdecline of 15 percent in road accident fatalities and 18 percent reduction inroad accidents during year 2020, as compared to 2019.
Asper the data, a total of 5194 accidents were registered in the year 2020 while3866 people lost their lives in road accidents in the same year.
DirectorGeneral of Police (DGP) Punjab Dinkar Gupta said that during the ongoing RoadSafety Month (January 18 to February 17, 2021), the Punjab Police haveorganised 521 road safety camps and 542 road safety seminars besides holding152 awareness rallies across the state and sensitised around 1.33 lakh studentsfrom schools and colleges and 1.28 lakh citizens about the road safety andtraffic rules.
Hesaid that considering road safety as a major concern, the Punjab Police hasbeen leaving no stone unturned to make the Punjab roads safer for commuters.
DGPGupta further said that to institutionalise the Road Safety, a pilot project“Accident Resolution Team- ART” was initiated in the Patiala district underwhich the teams led by the Station House Officer (SHO) visits and inspects theblack spots in their respective jurisdictions. Patiala police have formulated25 such ARTs and as many as 20 rectifications have already been realised,mostly on Patiala-Sirhind road, resulting in a remarkable decline in theaccident rate.
Astandard operating procedure (SOP) to prevent deaths due to stray animals hasbeen formulated by the Punjab Police and cattle accident black spots are alsobeing identified, said the DGP, adding that 25 such black spots mostly in theMalwa belt have been earmarked and reflective tapes are being tied around thenecks of stray cattle to avert accidents.
ThePunjab Police also has a proud distinction of achieving a 22% decline of roadaccidents deaths by 2020 on culmination of the Decade of action for Road Safety2011-2020, as proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in March 2010, said theDGP. It is pertinent to mention here that there was an overall increase of 10%in the road accidents deaths in the same period.
TrafficAdvisor Navdeep Asija said that after analysing the Road Accident DatabaseManagement System, as many as 391 black spots were identified in Punjab ofwhich 100 black spots have already been rectified by the National HighwayAuthority of India (NHAI) while 31 black spots are being corrected by the StatePublic Works Department (PWD).
ADGPTraffic Sharad Satya Chauhan said that the traffic wing has established a firstof its kind Road Safety and Traffic Research Centre in Mohali, which usesscientific tools of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to findappropriate solutions to curb the road accidents fatalities in the state. He saidthat to strengthen scientific road crash investigation, the Punjab Police havealso in-house developed “Crash Investigation Vehicle” at the Centre.