The Greater Chennai Corporation will soon start work on revamping road safety infrastructure in the city.
To begin with, the civic body will put up caution signboards at 30 locations. It will install reflective studs at 2,700 locations, hazard markers at 162 locations, and flexible median markers at 1,874 locations, the officials said.
At a meeting convened by the Supreme Court-appointed committee on road safety recently, the State government said Tamil Nadu registered the highest number of 62,685 road accidents in the country before the pandemic. Madhya Pradesh with 50,669 accidents came second and Uttar Pradesh third with 42,752 accidents. Kerala was fourth with 41,111 accidents. Mizoram had reported the lowest number with 62 accidents in a year.
Chennai topped the list in the State in 2021 with 1,008 road traffic accidents followed by Coimbatore with 840 accidents. The Nilgiris reported the lowest number of 33 accidents in 2021.
According to data compiled by the State government, Chennai reported 441 accidents in January 2022 and 473 in February 2022. In Chennai, road accidents claimed 98 lives in January and 92 in February. As many as 168 persons sustained grievous injuries in Chennai in January and 122 in February.
A total of 270 persons sustained minor injuries because of road traffic accidents in the city in January and the number increased to 395 in February.
Santhosh Loganaathan, Deputy Manager, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, said in Chennai, over 1,200 die in road accidents each year. “In 2019, 56% of the victims were motorised two-wheeler riders and 33% were pedestrians. This trend is consistent with the previous years as well. Overspeeding seems to be a major cause. We have several highways passing through the city which are designed for fast movement of vehicles with very little focus on the safety of pedestrians. There are barely any walkable footpaths and safe crossings for pedestrians on these roads. Footbridges and subways do not solve this problem as they are not preferred by the pedestrians and hence remain unused,” he said.
“The Greater Chennai Corporation, through the Chennai Smart City Ltd., is in the final stages of preparing a Road Safety Action Plan for the city. In terms of infrastructure, the GCC is about to commence implementation on the Intelligent Traffic Management System (ITMS) which looks at improving about 165 intersections with components like signal synchronization, safe pedestrian crossing, and streamlining vehicle flow. The GCC is planning to implement a comprehensive street redevelopment programme across six neighbourhoods of the city covering 71 sq. km. The project aims at improving mobility, utility and livability in these neighbourhoods with road safety being an important focus,” said Mr. Loganaathan.
