Number of road accidents down by 22% in 2 years

Kolkata: With the state-wide Safe Drive Save Life campaign launched by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Bengal has witnessed a 22 percent reduction in road accidents in the first quarter of 2018, compared to the corresponding period in 2016.

At the same time, the fatalities due to road accidents have also gone down by 18 percent in the same time period.

The state police have prepared a comparative study on the number of road accidents that took place in the past three years in the areas under the jurisdiction of West Bengal Police and with the completion of the study by March-end, the police have come to know that the first three months of 2018 have recorded the least number of road accidents in the past three years.

Accidents in the first quarter of 2018 were 15.5 percent less than in the corresponding period in 2017. The police have also compared the figure of 2018 with that of the same period in 2016, before the Safe Drive Save Life campaign was launched and it has revealed that there has been a drop in the rate of accidents by 22 percent.

With the police taking up a massive campaign to create awareness on road safety measures, the number of lives claimed due to road accidents has also dropped by 18 percent in the first quarter of 2018, compared to the corresponding period in 2016.

Comparison of the figures have further revealed that there has been a 12 percent drop in fatal accidents in the first three months of 2018, compared to the corresponding period in 2017.

Vivek Sahay, Additional Director General (Traffic and Road Safety), said: "As far as I can see from the police point of view, road safety has finally become a major area of concern for police. Earlier, road safety was not a major portion of activities and focus. So now, with the launch of Safe Drive Save Life by the Chief Minister, road safety has become an important part of action for the police. Besides continuing work to check crime and law and order issues, road safety related issues have also been taken up with equal importance and it has helped in reducing the number of road accidents."

The comparison of figures have also shown that in the month of March 2018, the number of fatalities due to road accidents has gone down by 20 percent, compared to that of March 2017.