india

Updated: Jul 11, 2019 13:30 IST

Over-speeding, drinkdriving, driving on wrong side, jumping red light and talking on phone while driving have been found to be the five biggest causes of road accidents in Uttar Pradesh — the state that tops the list in terms of deaths due to road mishaps in the country.

Stationary vehicles resulting in head and tail collusions have also been found as a major cause of accidents apart from overspeeding on Yamuna Expressway. In 2018, UP reported 42,568 cases of road accidents that claimed 22,256 lives and caused injuries to 29,664 people.

Now, a detailed analysis of the causes of road accidents in UP by the traffic department during calendar year 2018 shows that violation of traffic rules with regard to the five offences alone contributed to 26,517 road accidents, killing 13,415 people and injuring more than 18,000 others.

“Of the five factors identified as top killers, over-speeding comes on the top,” IG traffic Deepak Ratan said. It was revealed that exceeding the speed limit was found responsible for 13,843 mishaps in which 7,098 people were killed, 6,404 injured grievously and 2967 sustained minor injuries, he said.

Likewise, drink-driving caused 3,595 accidents killing 1,824 people and grievously injuring 1709 persons. Driving on wrong side caused even a bigger number of accidents at 4,572 killing 2,253 people and injuring 2,188 persons seriously. Jumping the red light was responsible for 679 mishaps in which 284 people lost their lives and 354 were injured.

Talking on phone while driving was found to be the third biggest cause of road accidents, he said. It caused 3,828 accidents killing 1,956 people and grievously injuring 1882 others.

Week enforcement of laws, lack of coordination between departments concerned like transport, home, traffic, PWD and health coupled with several people’s own mindset of not following traffic culture, unlike in many other states, are said to be the main reasons why traffic rules are violated with impunity in the Uttar Pradesh.

Deepak Ratan said problems did exist but the traffic department, he claimed, was committed to bringing down the number of accidents and deaths to the minimum possible level.

“We are taking all possible measures to deal with the situation,” he said adding, “For example, as many as 79,247 challans were issued for over-speeding in UP in 2018 and we have already issued 41,520 challans for the same offence up to May this year. He said not wearing helmets was responsible for a maxim number of deaths of two-wheeler riders in accident.

“This is why we are adopting a zero tolerance policy on violation of rules with regard to the use of helmet,” he said.