Ramanathapuram
The district has emerged on top among the nine districts in the south zone in reducing number of fatalities in road accidents in the last seven months since January this year, Superintendent of Police Omprakash Meena has said.
He said the number of fatalities has come down from 158 during January – July, 2018 to 103 during the corresponding period this year, recording a decline of 35%, he said. Dindigul secured the second place reducing fatalities from 328 during January – July, 2018 to 224 this year (32%) and Thoothukudi, the third place reducing the number of fatalities from 202 to 154 (24%), he said.
ADVERTISEMENT
“We have reduced the number of accidents through series of road safety measures and will continue to focus on reducing road accidents,” Mr Omprakash Meena said. After the State government sanctioned ₹65 lakh – ₹ 35 lakh for procuring road safety equipments and ₹ 30 lakh for erecting speed breakers at accident prone areas, the district police initiated series of road safety measures, he said.
The police procured road safety equipments such as reflective studs, reflective stickers, cameras, convex traffic mirrors and radar guns. Highway patrolling has also been strengthened and an Inspector of Police has been posted to monitor highway patrolling and submit reports regularly, he said.
He said speed breakers were being erected at junctions and intersections after the district police had identified 130 odd places for the speed breakers, he said. A total of 246 people had died in road accidents during 2018 and efforts were being taken to reduce the number of accidents this year, he said.
ADVERTISEMENT
The “wishing happy and safe journey” programme, launched last year to contain accidents continued this year also. Under the programme, police teams stopped long distance vehicles at the entry points on national highways in the early hours and helped the drivers to relax for sometime after serving them tea before allowing them to proceed.