City witnesses a significant decline in road accidents

Visakhapatnam: A slew of effective measures implemented by the police department to prevent road accidents yielded desired results.

The annual statistics is an indication of the decreased road accidents in the past one year.

Apart from bringing down the road mishaps, there has been a significant drop in the number of fatalities and victims getting injured as well.

For the past six months, the police have been taking stringent action against traffic violators. This has eventually given desired outcomes, especially in 2024 as compared to the previous years. In 2021, the number of road accidents was 1,462, while it has come down to 1,016 this year till now. From 344 in 2021, the death toll of road accidents minimised to 312. The count of injured in 2021 was 1,458 and it is 1,058 this year so far.

After taking charge as city commissioner of police, Shankhabrata Bagchi paid a special focus on traffic regulation and preventing road accidents.

Among other reasons, the city police identified riding a two-wheeler without a helmet, and drunk driving as the top reasons for the growing number of accidents in the city. Also, the same reasons top in the fatalities recorded due to accidents too.

Keeping this in view, a continuous enforcement has been in place to place a check on those riding a two-wheeler without a helmet. With challans being issued to them with immediate effect, not many are daring to step out of their places without fastening a helmet. This led to an apparent drop in road accidents.

Similarly, to prevent drunk driving, the police have intensified breath analyser tests in the recent past. From evening to midnight, the drunk drivers have no escape as the police have been taking breath analyser tests at various spots across the city. Three to four points have been covered under each police station limits for the purpose.

Earlier, the breath analysers were not sufficient enough to carry out the tests at various places. But with the police equipped with an increased count of the alcohol testers now, they are able to carry out the checking exercise with ease. This has led to bringing down the road accidents to a substantial extent.

Also, in several stretches where the commuters end up violating the one-way norms, the police identified such routes to take necessary action. Eventually, it did give expected results in curbing the road mishaps.