While the vehicle population in the city continued to increase last year, the number of fatal and non-fatal road accidents, which had increased in 2015, registered a decline.
The death count had risen from 93 in 2014 to 121 in 2015, but it registered a fall to 100 in 2016, according to statistics released by the city police. The total number of road accidents decreased by 14.69 per cent, from 837 to 714.
City Police Commissioner A. Subramanyeshwara Rao told The Hindu that better enforcement of traffic rules could be one of the reasons for the fall in accidents. In 2016, the traffic police booked 15.94 lakh offences, as against 11.56 lakh the year before.
The police had deployed advanced technology such as CCTV cameras and speed violation cameras, besides equipping traffic police personnel and officials with hand-held cameras to record traffic offences. While the number of cases booked against traffic offences has gone up every year since 2012, the number of traffic offenders booked in 2016 was the highest ever. The amount of penalty collected will also go up substantially from the current ₹7.14 crore as fines are yet to be collected from a large number of offenders. “If all the fines are collected, the total penalty will surpass last year’s ₹8.52 crore,” a senior traffic police officer said.
After a Field Traffic Violation Report (FTVR) is generated on the basis of footage from a CCTV or hand-held camera, a notice is sent to the address of the vehicle owner. The owner will have to pay the fine on receipt of the notice.
Meanwhile, Assistant Commissioner of Police (Traffic) N. Madaiah said the vehicle population in the city stood at 8.1 lakh on September 30, 2016. It has been growing at the rate of 10 per cent a year, said C.T. Murthy, Joint Commissioner of Transport, Mysuru.
