[GTO]

Thanks to Vivek Dorairaj for sharing this article with us.

Source & Full Article: The Hindu

The State Traffic Planning Cell of the Tamil Nadu Police is planning to identify most accident-prone stretches in the State and bring in foreign collaboration to reduce the number of accidents.

The ambitious initiative will take off with the arrival of an Australian delegation for its first field visit in June or July before the 50-km stretch of the East Coast Road (ECR) is taken up as a pilot project.

The causes of accidents will be analysed, and Australia will bring in engineering changes and install gadgets to bring down the accident rate through speed restriction and curbs on drunken driving, besides installing gadgets at accident-prone spots, all as a goodwill gesture. There will be no financial commitment on the part of the State. This will bring about a lot of change in the road condition, officials say. Once the project is implemented, Australia will showcase the ECR as a model road for other States, and Tamil Nadu will replicate the model on the accident-prone stretches, he added.

[sdp1975]

The efforts of both governments towards making the East Coast Road more safe are commendable.

I'm however shocked at reading the figures from the article on The Hindu - 44 deaths and 185 accidents on an average every day on the ECR ? Are these figures accurate ?

[rr_zen]

ECR has to be made a 4 lane highway first. The number of twists and turns the road has got is a key contributor to the number of accidents. Wish they could redesign the same.

[Raghav_K]

Originally Posted by sdp1975

The efforts of both governments towards making the East Coast Road more safe are commendable.

I'm however shocked at reading the figures from the article on The Hindu - 44 deaths and 185 accidents on an average every day on the ECR ? Are these figures accurate ?

Having seen the harsh overtakes on that two lane road, I'm not surprised at those figures.

My friends working at a multi speciality hospital near ECR and a GH nearby vouch that they spend sleepless nights on their duty days tending to accidents mainly from Ecr!

Changing that road to a 4 lane would be awesome, but i heard there are already opposition springing from roadside land and shop owners stating that the road had been widened twice already. Read it on hindu sometime ago

[raghu.t.k]

Along with 4 lanes we would need a divider and proper exits/ breaks in the medians. We have maniacs who love to ride on the wrong side at full speed, and have seen the transport buses also behaving in the same manner.

[deadguy25]

If cops do their duty by imposing severe fines on law breakers and educate people, why would we need someone from outside to do this for us?

[phamilyman]

Originally Posted by deadguy25

If cops do their duty by imposing severe fines on law breakers and educate people, why would we need someone from outside to do this for us?

Spot on.

The other cause of accidents is the barriers.

The rashness of traffic on OMR improved substantially after many barriers were removed. No country allows free flowing pedestrian traffic to cross an arterial highway - they build the right foot over bridges. in chennai we use the barriers as a shortcut to avoid doing the right thing.

and frankly no amount of tech will help if the bikers of chennai continue their kamikaze ways. It is a testament to our stupidity that parents are more worried about the reprimand from school teachers than coming under a bus because of them riding their two wheelers like maniacs. Yesterday a parent with two sleepy kids (primary school age?) jumped the LB road signal amid traffic flow - the kind of stuff even an ambulance does not do. With such road users, nothing will change.

Having ranted - the situation here is MUCH better than up north where accidents are more frequent. In chennai everyone has reconciled to this chaos and is much more gentler in their driving approach. If anything, Australians should help folks in NCR!

[supremeBaleno]

As per latest traffic states published in the newspaper couple days ago, among the 5 states having highest accident stats, TN was up there with another North Indian state (UP?).
One reason could be the highest density of 2-wheelers here. And their carefree riding, as phamilyman pointed out.

While help is welcome, do we really need AU to help fix this ? As others pointed out, this an be easily fixed by :
- stricter enforcement & penalties. Already DUI incidents have come down drastically in Chennai after cops started impounding cars (earlier they would fine 500 or 1000 bucks, which folks used to pay and move on).
- removing the unscientific barriers on the roads, which increase the problem instead of solving it.

[samaritan]

Originally Posted by GTO

Thanks to Vivek Dorairaj for sharing this article with us.

Source & Full Article: The Hindu

They don't have to go to Australlia when they have JP Research in coimbatore who can do this. Check out their website www.jpresearchindia.com