'104 black spots identified in Chennai, steps taken to reduce deaths'

CHENNAI: The city police have formed a 'special task force' comprising IIT-M staff, Chennai Corporation and Highways Department staff to curtail the number of accidents in the city, Chennai police commissioner Shankar Jiwal told reporters on Thursday. He added that 104 black spots have been identified as accident prone areas in the city.

He also claimed that he has assigned special police teams to solve the unsolved murders and murder for gain cases reported since 2004.

According to the data from National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) in the year 2021 in 5,034 accidents 998 people died in Chennai alone. While the city ranked second in deaths due to accidents, it topped in two-wheeler accident fatalities. “We have identified 104 hotspots where road accidents occur frequently. Officials from six departments were involved in identifying the cause of the road accidents,” Jiwal said.

Corporation officials, Engineers from Highway department, traffic personnel and IIT professors were involved in the study.

Jiwal claimed that due to the targeted enforcement the accidents have reduced by 20 percent up to August 31 compared to the same period last year.

He was interacting with the media after inaugurating an office for Traffic Warden Organisation in the campus of CoP office along with Kapil Kumar C Saratkar, Additional Commissioner of Police, Traffic.

Indicating that college students creating ruckus on the roads will not be treated with kid gloves, but with iron hands, Jiwal said the city police have started remanding college students under Arms Act. “Earlier we took a soft approach of getting them for counselling and informing their parents. But the students kept on creating ruckus on city streets wielding weapons. So we are now remanding and sending them to judicial custody,” noted the city police head.