With the High Court Madras directive on wearing helmet coming into force with effect from July 1, the city traffic police have intensified the rule with a new vigour.
The Commissioner, Shailesh Kumar Yadav, urged the people to get helmets before June 30, as the city police will further intensify implementation of the helmet rule for the two-wheeler riders from July 1. Before imposing fines on (public) for not wearing helmets, the policemen and women riding two-wheeler without the headgears are not spared.
“In the last five days, close to 200 motorists in khaki (both men and women) were fined with Rs.100 each, a traffic policeman at Periyar bus stand said and added that so far 2,500 motorists (till June 14) were fined for not wearing helmets among other violations under MV Act.
A senior traffic police officer said that though the objective is to ensure there are no fatalities on road, every year, a little over 100 motorists died in road accidents.
While the vehicle (all types) population had touched 1.5 million as per the RTOs with serial numbers (TN-58, TN-59 and TN-64) which came into effect from April 1989, enforcement had to be more stringent.
Vehicles registered prior to 1989 have not been taken into account, the officer clarified.
Though the number of vehicles had risen manifold in the last five years, the roads remained the same in the city. Hence, self-discipline from every road user alone would pave way for achieving the goal of “accident-free city”.
According to doctors in the Government Rajaji Hospital trauma care wing, 90 per cent of the road accidents referred to were mainly due to head injury. Most of them were in the productive age group of 20 to 45 years. While those after convalescing may have some disability permanently, in other cases, it remained partial for long months, thus making the patient immobile, they noted.
Accident-prone stretches
For their part, the police have identified as many as six stretches as accident-prone in the city. They include, by-pass road, Alagarkoil-Tallakulam road, Ring Road, Teppakulam-Kamarajar Salai, TPK Road (Alagappan Nagar-Palanganatham) and among others. While 65 per cent of the cases reported are due to collision between two-wheeler and other (heavy) vehicles, 30 to 35 per cent victims are pedestrians, who are knocked down.
As a first step, enforcing the helmet rule would be intensified in the coming days and next, like in Chennai city, drunken driving would also come under the scanner.
