Andhra Pradesh will soon make speed governors mandatory for certain category of transport vehicles to check road accidents.
This was disclosed by Transport Minister Sidda Raghava Rao after performing bhoomi puja for the international standard Institute of Driving and Traffic Research(IDTR), at Venkatachalampalli, near Darsi, in Prakasam district on Monday.
Identifying over-speeding as one of causes of accidents, he said all new transport vehicles including trucks, buses and mini-buses would have to be fitted with speed governors. GPS-based vehicle tracking system would also be introduced to keep track of vehicles on a continuous basis, he said.
The dusty kuchcha roads in the villages would be a thing of the past as the State government planned to convert them into cement roads in phases, he said. All the villages roads would be connected to mandal-level roads and, in turn, these roads would be connected to district level roads and they would be connected to Amaravati as part of the road grid project, he said. He explained the salient features of the IDTR to be set up with technical assistance from the Pune-based Central Institute of Road Transport and run by Maruti Suzuki India Ltd on not-for-profit basis.
The automobile major road safety wing head R. Mahesh said his firm would bring in the latest simulators and safety equipment to the IDTR for training drivers in a professional manner.
Underscoring the need for installing safety devices in cars to survive road crashes, district in-charge Minister R. Kishore Babu said he escaped unhurt as airbags in his car opened up even as his car was crushed in a collision with a tractor on the Vijayawada-Hyderabad highway.
Prakasam Superintendent of Police Ch. Srikanth said road mishaps accounted for one-fifth of the total crime in the district last year, killing about 500 people. National highways were relatively safe due to constant patrolling. But the accidents on other internal roads had increased due to risky rides, he added.
