Hyderabad: Ever since the Outer Ring Road(ORR) has been constructed, it has remained one of the accident-prone spots with many commuters paying no heed to the safety instructions, awareness programmes often leading to accidents.
Speaking on the issue, Krishna Prasad T, DGP and Chairman Road Safety Authority, Telangana, said that despite many awareness programmes and safety instructions issued by the government people are driving recklessly.
“Nearly 80% of accidents on ORR occur due to over speeding. The speed limit is 100km/hour on ORR, but people tend to exceed the speed limit to 120km/hour and beyond,” said Krishna Prasad.
“People also forget that it is ring road, which means the road is round. They need to extra careful on such roads, as there are sudden curves. Drivers don’t anticipate sudden curves and at times hit the road dividers,” he added.
These frequent accident cases on ORR falling under Rachakonda and Cyberabad police limits, the traffic police says drunk driving and overspeeding is identified as the key factors which leads to such accidents on ORR. Riders avoiding helmets during riding is also one of the reasons they added.
“Last year, we recorded 26 accidents on ORR and the number has gone up to 34 till November this year. Also, the number of deaths reported due to accidents have increased from 15 to 17 this year,” said additional DCP (traffic), Rachakonda, Mohd Tajuddin Ahmed.
“The cases of over speeding have shot up from 75,000 last year to 1.17 lakh this year till November,” said Ahmed.
Speaking of Cyberabad limits, the situation is quite similar in this region too the traffic police officials added.
“This year accident cases have increased, however, fatal accidents remain lower. We can spread awareness and book cases against violators, but people have to take their own safety seriously,” said a source from Cyberabad police, TOI reports.
The accident cases in Cyberabad limits have reached 60 in the first 6 months against last year’s overall accidents reaching more than 90.