Accidents on Hyderabad ORR Declines

Thanks to the relentless efforts by Ch Srinivas, ACP Traffic, Shamshabad and with support from Cyberabad Commissioner CV Anand and Cyberabad DCP (Traffic) Avinash Mohanty, fatal accidents and deaths on Outer Ring Road (ORR) have come down marginally this year. According to a study by the M. Tech students of JNTU, under the guidance of senior architect Bucchireddy, only 31 accidents, 18 deaths and 29 injuries have occurred in 2014, which is much better than the statistics for the same period in the previous year. The statistics was presented at a colloquium at JNTU, Masab Tank

The 150-km stretch of ORR has gained notoriety for being an accident hub and 2013 proved to be a fatal year. As many as 1,029 accidents took place and 1,091 lives were lost in the previous year. This brings us to the question of whether there’s any solution to these accidents? Isn’t there anyway for people to know what are the most accident prone spots?

To minimise road accidents on the ORR stretch, checking rash and negligent driving as well as to enforce lane discipline, a joint safety initiative of Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) and Cyberabad Police ‘The Patrolling Plan of ORR’ was launched in January.

In the first phase, the ORR stretch from Pedda Amberpet to Patancheru through Shamshabad was covered. Five new high speed patrolling vehicles along with same number of cranes and ambulances provided by the HMDA were doing the patrolling of the above stretch.

CV Anand said that accidents were taking place on ORR as there were no proper rules or proper enforcement due to lack of manpower.

“Now that we got adequate manpower and machinery, strict enforcement would be taken up to reduce road accidents. The enforcement would focus primarily on unauthorised halting, over speeding, wrong side driving, movement of cattle apart from others,’’ he said.

Cyberabad Commissionerate has come up with a plan to map the number of accidents. In collaboration with the traffic police, they are preparing a database as well as a map that denotes the most accident prone areas on ORR, state and national highways.

According to a study by M. Tech students of JNTU, under the guidance of senior architect Bucchireddy, “On the ORR, as against the 42 accidents, 26 deaths and 43 injuries between January and June in 2013, only 31 accidents, 18 deaths and 29 injuries have occurred in 2014.”

DCP (Traffic) Avinash Mohanty said that penalising the drivers in a focused manner, usage of speed guns and patrolling vehicles has led to better enforcement of rules at the ORR.

“We have proposed a need for a high power rapid intercept vehicle with radar speed gun to check over speeding, breath analysers to monitor drunken driving , 360 degrees video camera to keep surveillance , GPS ,public address system , dragon lights and to bring down the accidents further,” he added.