Gurugram unlocks: Three-fold increase in road accident deaths

Gurugram: Deaths due to road accidents that had been significantly reduced due to harsh lockdown measures in light of COVID-19, saw a sharp increase as these restrictions were slowly being lifted from May this year. Recent data showed that deaths due to road accidents had increased threefold in May compared to April when travel restrictions were unarguably harsher.

While Gurugram had reported a total of 15 road accidents leading to four deaths in April, the number of road accidents the following month doubled to 30, killing 12 people. The number further increased in June when 36 road accidents were reported, in which 12 people lost their lives.

In one of the recent cases on June 19, three children under the age of 12 and their father were killed after a tractor-trolley allegedly rammed them when they had stopped for a water break on Sohna-Palwal road. However, for a city that sees an average of two deaths per day due to road accidents, these numbers from 2020 are much less than in previous years.

For instance, in April last year, Gurugram had reported 96 road accidents leading to the death of 30 people. And while the numbers from May this year have increased as lockdown restrictions were eased, it is still significantly less than what was reported in the same month last year. In May 2019, the city had seen 107 road accidents killing 36 people.

Officials in the Gurugram Police said that the Delhi-Jaipur expressway, which sees the highest number of road accidents, had been relatively peaceful this year, with a total of 25 fatalities being reported in the first half of the year.

According to Gurugram police, driving in the wrong lane and over speeding have been major causes of accidents in the city this year. Other factors include fatigue, drink-driving and overloaded heavy vehicles.

According to senior officials of Gurugram, the traffic police's strict approach and better coordination with other public agencies have reduced the number of fatal accidents in the. As against 1,179 accidents and 453 accident-related deaths in 2018, there were 1,069 accidents and 400 deaths in 2019.

The city is also looking to come up with a Common Mobility Plan (CMP) in collaboration with the School of Planning and Architecture to strengthen mass transportation systems and reduce reliance on private vehicles to curb accident-related fatalities. The CMP is being drafted keeping in mind the city's estimated population by 2030, which is going to grow to 4 million people.

Government officials say that only 25 per cent of the 1,000-km of primary road network in Gurugram has usable pavements, which adversely affects pedestrians and cyclists. About 17 lakh people make approximately 20 lakh trips each day on these roads, two-thirds of which are within city limits, amounting to a high passenger volume.