Efforts have begun to eliminate ‘black spots’, as the accident-prone zones are commonly referred to, on the Renigunta-Kadapa highway which evidently has a dubious track record of being witness to a huge number of accidents at any given period.
As road safety requires a multi-disciplinary approach, a refresher programme for officers from the stakeholder departments like transport, national highways, traffic police, and medical and health was conducted here on Thursday. It was conducted under the road safety component of the Andhra Pradesh Road Sector Project, which was funded in the form of a loan by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to the State.
Demo project
The State government is implementing the demo project on one corridor along the Renigunta-Rayalacheruvu Road using a multi-sector approach and has nominated the Transport Department as the nodal agency. The R&B Department and AP Road Development Corporation (APRDC) are the implementing agencies. While the primary task is to identify the accident-prone spots and take up corrective measures on the road, enough focus will also be laid on allied aspects like high speed, overloading, lack of medical ambulances and awareness on road safety.
“Road safety audits will have to be conducted to identify the potential spots and eliminate the black spots,” said S.M. Sarin, a road safety specialist and formerly Director of Central Road Research Institute, New Delhi.
Speaking to The Hindu on the sidelines of the event, Dr. Sarin said overloading was the major problem that could damage road assets. “It is not only about the trucks that load heavily to save cost, even the buses overload passengers that can potentially damage the roads in the long run,” he said indicating the need to have weighbridges along the highways to curb overloading.
As the team leader of the project, Dr. Sarin spoke on the need to have medical centres and ambulances with advanced medical equipment, speed guns to monitor speeding vehicles and education programme to highlight truck/bus drivers.
