Andhra's Road Safety Crisis: CM Naidu Orders Third-Party Accident Audits

Third-party auditing is expected to help in ascertaining if an accident occurred because of some defect in the vehicle, lapse on the part of the driver, or gaps in road engineering works.

Addressing the Road Safety Council meeting at the Secretariat, the Chief Minister expressed concern over the deaths of 6,433 people in 15,462 road accidents in the state so far this year.

Andhra Pradesh stands in eighth place in road accidents in the country.

The officials said that one-third of these accidents were caused by two-wheelers, and 53 per cent of the accidents were self-accidents involving cars and two-wheelers.

The CM instructed the officials to inquire into the reasons for the high number of deaths in road accidents in Nellore, Tirupati, Palanadu, Annamayya, and Kakinada districts.

Officials also said that 79 per cent of accidents occur due to over-speeding, 3 per cent due to wrong-side driving, and 1 per cent due to alcohol and mobile phones. While 42 per cent of accidents occur on national highways, 21 per cent of accidents occur on state highways.

The Chief Minister reviewed the appointment of road safety agencies at the state and district levels, the State Road Safety Fund, correction of black spots on roads, crash barriers to prevent accidents, training programmes for drivers, etc.

He ordered that a Road Safety Council meeting be convened every three months to review the progress on these issues.

The CM also ordered the installation of speed governors in transport vehicles as per rules to control overspeed. He also said that the issue of installing speed governors for non-transport vehicles should be considered. He directed the National Highways and R&B officials to install CCTV cameras covering every half kilometre on both sides of national highways and state highways to detect the speed of vehicles from time to time. He instructed the Transport Department to connect these with the Real Time Governance Society (RTGS) and set up a special control room for vehicle tracking.

He ordered the seizure of vehicles travelling at very high speeds despite warnings being issued. He clarified that action should be taken on speed control within three months.

He instructed to take all measures as per the guidelines of the Supreme Court Committee. He wanted a modern driving training centre to be set up for the training of drivers.

He said that Darshi and Adoni driving training centres should be completed quickly. He said that road signs, black spots on roads, should be repaired, and facilities for pedestrians and markings should be established. The CM ordered that 680 black spots on national highways should be repaired.

Naidu also instructed the officials to take strict action against unauthorised alterations in vehicles, as these are not allowed as per the Bus Building Code. He said that alternative ways should be explored to overcome this problem. He said that the severity of accidents is increasing due to unauthorizedly conversion of sleeper buses.

He suggested that a study should be done on the reasons for registrations in northeastern states like Nagaland, and accordingly, changes should be considered in Andhra Pradesh as well, so that the state revenue is not affected. A letter should be written to the Centre on vehicle permits for sleeper buses in various states.

The officials informed the CM that 134 buses with unauthorised alteration of All India Tourist Permits have been seized so far. They said that school buses are also being checked from time to time.

Transport Minister Mandipalli Ramprasad Reddy, DGP Harish Kumar Gupta, senior officials of the Road Safety Authority, Transport Department, National Highways, Municipal Administration and other departments attended the meeting.

- IANS