Officials of various departments expressed concern over the increasing road mishaps and said that most of the accidents are occurring due to negligence of drivers, poor road engineering and lack of knowledge on road safety.
As part of the 25th National Road Safety Week being observed from Monday, Collector S. Suresh Kumar, Superintendents of Police Gopinath Jatty and J. Satyanarayana, Deputy Transport Commissioner (DTC) V. Sundar, APSRTC Regional Manager P.V. Rama Rao and other officials released posters on road safety and inaugurated the programme at different places.
‘Prachara Ratham’The Road Transport Authority (RTA) officials arranged a ‘Prachara Ratham’ with cultural troupes to enlighten the people against drunken and cell phone driving, rash and negligent driving, keeping vehicles in good condition, following traffic rules and other topics during the week days, said the DTC.
Speaking after inaugurating the ‘Prachara Ratham’, Mr. Satyanarayana said the death toll in road accidents is more than the deaths in other crimes and the sufferings of the injured could not be explained in words.
Mr. Gopinath said many accidents are occurring due to bad roads and stressed the need for coordination between Roads and Buildings, Police, APSRTC, National Highway Authority of India, RTA and other departments to prevent road mishaps.
At a separate programme organised by APSRTC on Road Safety Week, the DTC appealed to the passengers to encourage RTC and other public transport systems and not to travel on illegal services.
“APSRTC is the largest fleet in India, which is a well maintained and disciplined organisation. Many drivers in the corporation have put in their service for about three decades without a single accident”, said Mr. Sundar and praised the best drivers in RTC.
Regional Manager, RTC, P.V. Rama Rao said the accident rate has come down in RTC in the last three years in the region.
About 165 mishaps occurred during 2011-12, 105 in 2012-13 and in 2013 (up to December 31st 2013), 60 mishaps have been reported, he said.
Additional SP D. Janaki, Traffic DSP P.V. Subba Reddy, RTO Chandar, Deputy Chief Mechanical Engineer M.Y. Danam, and Motor Vehicle Inspector Umamaheswara Rao participated.
