The Capital’s roads were the safest in a decade last year, with substantial reductions in the number of lives lost as well as the number of accidents, the police said on Friday.
According to the data released by the Delhi Police, the number of road fatalities registered a slump of over 27 per cent from 820 in 2013 to 595 last year. Also, 559 accidents were recorded in 2014 as opposed to 778 in 2013.
Delhi’s roads were at their most dangerous, according to the statistics, in 2009, when 2,325 persons lost their lives in as many as 2,272 road accidents — the highest number of road accidents and deaths resulting thereof in 10 years.
“Things are constantly improving on the traffic front in Delhi and will continue to improve further with the introduction of the Intelligent Traffic Management System [ITMS] sooner rather than later,” Delhi Police Commissioner B.S. Bassi said.
Senior officers from the traffic unit attributed the reduction in accidents, especially fatal ones, to stricter and more uniform enforcement of the law, and an emphasis on immediate and harsh prosecution for offences such as drunken and dangerous driving.
For instance, a senior traffic police officer pointed out, that while prosecution against drunken driving had gone up from 26,633 drivers in 2013 to 28,059 in 2014, the unit had made it a point to ensure that more jail terms were handed down to drunken drivers, those found speeding and similar offences pertaining to ‘general behavioural problems exhibited by Delhi drivers’.
“The number of drunken drivers sent to jail last year soared by over 83 per cent. As opposed to 3,628 such drivers in 2013, 6,653 were sent to jail in 2014,” said a traffic police officer. While just 29,045 drivers been booked for over-speeding in 2013, 1,23,676 were prosecuted for the same in 2014 — an increase of a massive 325 per cent. In the case of rash and negligent driving, 1,049 drivers were prosecuted in 2014, as opposed to just 238 the year before.
