The Motor Vehicle Department (MVD) will soon introduce a new software to record and maintain accurate details of various road accidents in the State.
The new decision comes from the department, which lacked a streamlined record-keeping mechanism for the past several years.
As per a latest directive from the Transport Commissioner to the Regional Transport Officers, the new method will equip the department to quickly update the accident details online and provide reliable figures for official purposes.
Other than recording just the number of accidents, the new system will ensure that the specific details about each accident are gathered, and the facts on victims killed or injured in the accidents, recorded. The vehicle history and the details about the drivers too will be recorded and kept with the department for future references.
Till the introduction of the software, the RTOs have been asked to maintain a manual record of accidents. A new register will be kept at all the offices to enter the data. As per the instruction, all field officers on accident inspection duty will have to submit the accident details in a prescribed format to the Joint Regional Transport Officer (JRTO) or the Regional Transport Officer on a regular basis.
JRTOs will be responsible for handing over the report to the RTOs concerned in every two weeks. The compiled data from the RT offices will be submitted to the Transport Commissionerate in Thiruvananthapuram every month. At the same time, the officers will be responsible for immediately communicating the details of the sensational accidents to the Transport Commissioner as per the standing instructions.
The latest circular from the Transport Commissioner puts it straight that the “lack of reliable, updated information causes difficulties in answering submissions and calling attention motions”. The procedure now has the department collecting the data regarding accidents from the Police department. But the information thus received has statistical figures only and does not contain any details of the accident,” the circular says.