In a remarkable achievement in road safety, Punjab has witnessed a significant decline of 15 percent in road accident fatalities and 18 percent reduction in road accidents during year 2020, as compared to 2019.
As per the data, a total of 5194 accidents were registered in the year 2020 while 3866 people lost their lives in road accidents in the same year.
Director General of Police (DGP) Punjab Dinkar Gupta said that during the ongoing Road Safety Month (January 18 to February 17, 2021), the Punjab Police have organised 521 road safety camps and 542 road safety seminars besides holding 152 awareness rallies across the state and sensitised around 1.33 lakh students from schools and colleges and 1.28 lakh citizens about the road safety and traffic rules.
He said that considering road safety as a major concern, the Punjab Police has been leaving no stone unturned to make the Punjab roads safer for commuters.
DGP Gupta further said that to institutionalise the Road Safety, a pilot project “Accident Resolution Team- ART” was initiated in the Patiala district under which the teams led by the Station House Officer (SHO) visits and inspects the black spots in their respective jurisdictions. Patiala police have formulated 25 such ARTs and as many as 20 rectifications have already been realised, mostly on Patiala-Sirhind road, resulting in a remarkable decline in the accident rate.
A standard operating procedure (SOP) to prevent deaths due to stray animals has been formulated by the Punjab Police and cattle accident black spots are also being identified, said the DGP, adding that 25 such black spots mostly in the Malwa belt have been earmarked and reflective tapes are being tied around the necks of stray cattle to avert accidents.
The Punjab Police also has a proud distinction of achieving a 22% decline of road accidents deaths by 2020 on culmination of the Decade of action for Road Safety 2011-2020, as proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in March 2010, said the DGP. It is pertinent to mention here that there was an overall increase of 10% in the road accidents deaths in the same period.
Traffic Advisor Navdeep Asija said that after analysing the Road Accident Database Management System, as many as 391 black spots were identified in Punjab of which 100 black spots have already been rectified by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) while 31 black spots are being corrected by the State Public Works Department (PWD).
ADGP Traffic Sharad Satya Chauhan said that the traffic wing has established a first of its kind Road Safety and Traffic Research Centre in Mohali, which uses scientific tools of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to find appropriate solutions to curb the road accidents fatalities in the state. He said that to strengthen scientific road crash investigation, the Punjab Police have also in-house developed “Crash Investigation Vehicle” at the Centre.