The city’s traffic may have swelled in the past year, going by the trend of a steady year-on-year increase in vehicular numbers, but Bengaluru has something to cheer about. Going by the statistics of the Bengaluru Traffic Police (BTP), the number of accidents reported in the city in 2018 was the lowest in over a decade.
The BTP recorded 4,611 accidents in 2018, the least since 2006. The number of accidents reported in 2017 and 2016 were 5,064 and 7,506, respectively. The highest number of accidents at 8,426 was reported in 2007.
P. Harishekaran, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic), said the tilt in numbers could be credited, among other things, to a “major focus in strategy from enforcement to regulation.”
“We are mainly focussing on regulating properly now, so enforcement has reduced. The accident rate is dipping because of effective regulation, which needs manpower and domination of personnel on major roads, and so on. Their presence itself increases regulation as people fall in line,” he said. Mr. Harishekaran added that earlier, around 30% traffic personnel would not be present on the road as they were focussing on catching violators. “If you prevent crime, it won’t happen. Prevention for traffic personnel is regulating,” he said. He also said movement of vehicles had been slowed down owing to factors such as the white-topping work undertaken by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike.
Electronic enforcement
Piyush Tewari, founder and CEO, SaveLIFE Foundation, an NGO that works towards improving road safety and emergency medical care, said apart from traffic slowdown being a definite factor, the BTP’s automation initiatives in enforcement may have also helped bring down the numbers.
“Bengaluru was one of the first cities to implement electronic enforcement. Though this usually takes two to three years for people to be aware of and bring about behavioural change, international trends have also shown that electronic enforcement works as people know they are being watched,” he said.
About Bengaluru’s positive statistics, he said it was a combination of policy and enforcement that worked. “The real test would be to see a reduction in the number of accidents during night hours, when there is no congestion,” he said.
