Bhopal: Road Accidents Swallowed 151 Lives In 8 Months

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Four-wheeler commuters overspeeding their vehicles on the roads have caused 151 road deaths in the city from January to August this year, statistics provided by city traffic police revealed. However, what comes as a surprise is that most of these deaths occurred on broad and smooth roads of Bhopal and not on battered thoroughfares.

June 2024 was quite harsh as 38 people lost lives on city roads. On an average, almost 18 deaths following road accidents took place every month till August this year. Last year, the total death toll due to road accidents was 196, which was 16 deaths per month.

The Bhopal traffic police had prepared the list of black spots (accident prone areas) in April this year, according to which Govindpura topped the list. The data of the road accident fatalities provided by the police to Free Press revealed that a majority of deaths due to road accidents occurred on Link Road of Bhopal followed by Ratibad and Karond.

Misrod stood at the fourth place in terms of road accident deaths, which is listed on the eighth position by the traffic police under the black spot areas.

Speed radar guns unused

The speed radar guns procured by traffic police in 2012 are lying unused. They were meant to curb overspeeding in Bhopal. Sources at the city traffic police told Free Press that earlier, when they penalised people and stopped them from reckless driving, the traffic offenders used to argue with the traffic cops, doubting the accuracy of radar guns, and were reluctant to pay fine.

To check this, an interceptor vehicle was deployed but it could not monitor the overspeeding in all areas of the city at a time.

When contacted, deputy police commissioner Sanjay Singh said body-worn cameras would be given to traffic police to prevent overspeeding and thus curb road accident fatalities.