One out of every five pedestrians, who were killed in a road accident in the city in 2010, was a senior citizen. Nearly 80 per cent of senior citizens who ended up as traffic fatalities were pedestrians, Commissioner of Police T. Rajendran said on Thursday.
According to official figures, Chennai city witnessed 604 fatal accidents in 2010 as against 602 in 2009.
Mr. Rajendran said a maximum number of fatal road accidents involved two-wheelers. Most of the fatal accidents occurred on Anna Salai, followed by East Coast Road and Rajiv Gandhi Salai.
Addressing a press conference, he said the Chennai Police would soon send a proposal to the government recommending stringent action against accused persons involved in hit-and-run cases. He observed that the crime rate in 2010 had come down by 12 per cent compared to the previous year. A 33 per cent fall was recorded in the theft of automobiles and police recovered 70 per cent of the vehicles reported stolen. A majority of chain-snatching offences took place on the road involving motorcycle-borne suspects.
The Central Crime Branch police had registered 675 cases last year and arrested 677 suspects, he said.
As the installation of surveillance cameras helped in detection of crimes, including a murder case, the Chennai Police have proposed to install 1,000 cameras across the city at an estimated cost of Rs.15 crore.
“The closed circuit television network has yielded good dividends. We managed to detect a murder, burglaries, thefts, chain-snatching and road accident cases with the help of CCTV footage. We are likely to get 1,000 more surveillance cameras,” Mr. Rajendran said.
Additional Commissioners of Police Sanjay Arora (Headquarters) and M. Shakeel Akhter (Law and Order) were present.
