KOLKATA: The fatal accident on the Maa flyover-AJC Bose Road flyover connector in the wee hours of Friday resulted from the violation of multiple traffic rules by the two students of a private engineering college at Anandapur. However, bikers and motorists are refusing to learn a lesson.
In the past two months, the city has witnessed 542 daily violations of traffic rules, which could lead to an accident, said the officers at Lalbazar on Friday.
Twenty-seven fatal accidents took place in the past two months and these were caused by similar violations, especially drink-driving, rash driving, speeding and breaking traffic signals. A study of serious traffic violations in the city in February and March — when cops had launched a crackdown, imposing enhanced fines on the offenders under the amended Motor Vehicles Act — has revealed that 3,070 motorists and bikers were at the wheel under the influence of alcohol. Around 4,371 other offenders were found to have resorted to rash driving while 5,049 others were found to be speeding. There have been close to 18,953 signal violations across the city.
What is also worrying the officers at Lalbazar is that despite the crackdown in the past two months, 95,500-odd traffic cases have been slapped in this period — the total traffic violation cases have increased from 43, 861 in February to 51, 611. However, there is also a silver lining — the number of violations is lesser than that in last year when there were Covid-induced restrictions.
A study of individual traffic guards also reveals that the number of violations in central Kolkata is higher than the northern and southern fringes of the city.
Cops attributed this to more two-wheeler riders coming to the central parts of the city for work. “There has been an increase in the number of people using bikes,” said an officer.
