BHUBANESWAR: Alarmed by the rising fatalities owing to road accidents, the transport department has decided to start an audit of road signages across the state. In the first phase, the audit will be carried out on at least 3,000-km stretch of roads.
“While road accidents are overwhelmingly caused by rash driving and human error, the potential to prevent such accidents and the consequent fatalities lies with the road infrastructure. To make our roads fully signage-compliant, we will start the signage audit,” joint transport commissioner (road safety) Sanjay Biswal said.
The State Transport Authority (STA) said simple road engineering interventions like provision of appropriate road markings and traffic signs, minor layout changes in the road junctions are proven measures that significantly reduce road accidents. Road signages help drivers by issuing them a warning about hazards. Faulty road signage and signals are often responsible for massive traffic jams and accidents.
“Many a time we found road signs wrongly placed, hidden, bungled, missing or just plain wrong. Roads should speak and have better communication with the users. Our objective is to identify faulty road signages and markings and rectify them,” an STA officer said. Proper road signages will replace the faulty ones. Officials will also install new road signages wherever required.
The transport department conducted a sample audit of road signages on state highway-10 (Biju Expressway) from Deokaranpur to Keseibahal on a 50-km stretch in Sundargarh district with the help of experts.
After the study, the experts recommended a massive facelift of the faulty signages to warn, inform and guide the road users or motorists. At some places, the pavement markings were not conspicuous. The study further suggested that lack of signage may cause confusion at intersections and trigger accidents. The Indian Road Congress code has set several parameters for three types of road signs — regulatory, warning and informative. The parameters include characteristics, installation, location and visibility for correct application.
Deaths due to road accidents increased by 12% across the state during January to October in 2021 as against the corresponding 10 months in 2020. Altogether 4,074 people died in road mishaps from January to October last year. The casualty figure had stood at 3,637 during the first 10 months in 2020.
