Garden city or accident city?

Garden city Bangalore can well be called accident city, with more than 350 road deaths recorded in the last five months. Since January 2008, 3,221 accidents were registered, with 2,587 persons on the injured list, majority of the victims being school children and pedestrians.

Statistics also show surge in accidents during weekends.

"Even new infrastructure setups are failing; primarily due to lack of proper analysis and planning. All in all, I would recommend planning authorities to consider not only signal-free junctions, but also focus mainly on reducing the traffic density at a point at any given time," says Ravi Kishan, a techie.

The traffic police are now re-thinking their strategy on how to avoid road accidents in Bangalore.

"The roads in the city are not properly maintained and are extremely narrow in certain parts. It is a nightmare driving to Electronic City during the peak hours. The road is flooded with trucks headed towards Tamil Nadu and an equal number of two wheelers make the road very unsafe," says traffic expert M N Sreehari.

"My observation shows 60 percent of the people killed in accidents are pedestrians. Everyone keeps talking about road widening, but what about footpaths? They lack proper illumination or barricades and are occupied by vendors and hawkers. There is absolutely no place to walk," adds Sreehari.

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lavanya.srinivasan@mid-day.com