LUCKNOW: The adoption of world class technology in road building can help UP bring down the number of road accident deaths on its expressways highways.
This was the view of experts at a two-day seminar on ‘Road safety on the expressways’, organised by Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority in collaboration with Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) in Lucknow on Friday. The interaction between UP engineers and CRRI experts holds significance since UPIEDA is building expressways worth over Rs 50,000 crore in the state, including the Purvanchal Expressway and Bundelkhand Expressway.
“UP is among the states which have failed to contain road accident deaths,” said S Velumurugan, principal scientist of CRRI, while giving a presentation on “Global road safety and road safety scenario in India”. While road accident deaths dropped by 3% in India, UP registered an increase of 4% in 2017, he added.
Later speaking to TOI, Velumurugan said UP needs to adopt road safety measures like Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and West Bengal to reduce the number of fatalities on its roads. “In Tamil Nadu, police personnel patrolling the national highways keep of the accidents and file reports to their seniors. This helps in analysing the trends and devise ways to curb road accidents. Road builders have adopted measures to check road accidents and succeeded in bringing down deaths on roads, but such steps have not yet been adopted in states like UP, Bihar and Chhattisgarh,” Velumurugan said.
UPEIDA CEO and additional chief secretary home, Awanish Awasthi, said the seminar’s focus is on exploring ways to contain road accidents on expressways.
Among other speakers, Mohan Rao gave insight into the concept of road signages and importance of traffic control devices. Subhash Chandra of CRRI gave a presentation on designing for safety. Experts listed overspeeding, intake of alcohol and overtaking as three major factors behind fatal road accidents in India. Ensuring safety of pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists can also help in reducing the number of road crashes, they said.
Date: November 04, 2019
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