By S.T. Ravikumar
Mysore/Mysuru: Long periods of semi-lockdown, night and weekend curfews put in place as a measure to contain the spread of COVID in Mysuru city has not resulted in reduction of road accidents or fatalities, data available with authorities shows.
According to officials, there is no major dip in overall fatality or people sustaining injuries or number of accidents. In fact, when compared to 2020, 2021 reported more accidents and fatalities. While 111 serious accidents and 117 deaths have been reported in 2020, 117 serious accidents and 121 deaths have been reported in 2021.
These accidents have been reported in all Traffic Police Stations in city like Devaraja, Krishnaraja, Narasimharaja, Siddarthanagar and V.V. Puram. In 2020, 516 common accidents were reported and this has risen to 534 in 2021. While 616 people sustained major and minor injuries in 2020, 670 persons were injured in 2021.
Traffic Police said that the high number of accidents and related fatalities are mainly due to riders not following traffic rules and increased instances of overspeeding on empty roads, mostly after dark.
In 2020, the Police had reduced contact enforcement in the wake of the pandemic and were only enforcing rules through non-contact means and also after obtaining visuals from the CCTV cameras. People are taking things for granted and in most cases, deaths and grievous injuries have occurred due to negligence, a Police officer said.
Majority of accident deaths have occurred as people do not follow traffic rules like wearing helmets, maintaining lane discipline and obeying traffic signals.
– Catch Red-light offenders: Red light violations are very common in Mysore, with or without the presence of police at the junction. The technology should be used to detect and punish such offenders.
– Reduce pot-holes and obstacles: Taking sudden deviation to avoid a pot-hole or an obstacle is another main reason for accidents. Most two wheel vehicles don’t have rear view mirrors, they simply come on your way if you are not cautious. There will be more accidents with increased presence of silent electric vehicles.
– Haphazard parking on roads: Two lane (in a given direction) roads are effectively single lane as the left lane is used to park vehicles. This will make the motorists to change lanes frequently resulting in accidents. Parking/Stopping vehicles near junctions should be prohibited all over the city.