Rising road accidents force police to review causes

Nashik: Over 700 deaths in road accidents in 2015 and more than 680 the previous year in the rural areas of have prompted police to study the causes of the fatal mishaps and submit the findings at the earliest for precautionary measures.
Officials of the rural traffic branch said places such as Manmad, Chandwad and Pimpalgaon along the Mumbai-Agra Highway witnessed maximum accidents, apart from the ones on the Nashik Pune highway in the Sinnar area.
Traffic branch inspector (rural police) S M Yadav said, "These four police stations, and a couple of others, witness the maximum accidents. We have instructed the inspectors of these police stations to study the patches where the maximum road accidents occur. They will also have to find out out what leads to the accidents."
Yadav said blind spots, overspeeding, gradient, speedbreakers and wrong-side driving could be the causes of the accidents. "Once the causes are identified, preventive measures can be taken."
Officials said the presence of two important highways - Mumbai Agra Highway and Nashik Pune Highway - and other state roads see huge traffic flow through various parts of the district. Motorists also tend to overspeed on the improved roads.
Last year, 722 people died in road accidents in the rural parts of the district. In 2014, the Nashik rural police recorded 688 deaths. Considering the overall accidental deaths in the district, including the city, approximately 1,000 people are dying in Nashik every year since the past four years. From 2012 to 2015, there have been 3,903 deaths.
The police said apart from the fatal accidents on highway places like Vavi, Niphad, Nandgaon, Deola, the Kalwan-Nanduri strcth, the road between Manmad and Malegaon, Manmad and Yeola and Manmad and Chandwad also witnesses many accidents.
In a bid to force motorists on the highways to reduce the speed of their vehicles, the residents of these towns or villages have got speed-breakers constructed on the highway. Many motorists said that the size of the speed breakers was too at least six to eight inches high which threw two wheeler riders off balance.