The Madras High Court has once again pulled up the Tamil Nadu government for poor road conditions in the state. The court was hearing a public interest litigation, filed by KK Rajendran from Chennai in 2017, which sought the implementation of the government order mandating the wearing of seat belts and helmets.
As part of the hearing on Wednesday, the Tamil Nadu government, which was asked to submit a status report on the implementation of the helmet rule, stated that the police have been booking those violating these rules and submitted data to aid their argument. The police submitted that the number of persons who were not wearing helmets during road accidents fell by 24%, and those who were booked for violating the rule rose by 88%.
Recording the submissions, Justice M Sathyanarayanan and Justice R Hemalatha stated that failing to wear helmets is not the only reason for fatal accidents. The bench stated that the poor conditions of roads and the lack of maintenance of roads also caused road accidents. Directing the government of Tamil Nadu to submit more reports with information on improving the roads and the maintenance of arterial roads in Chennai, the bench posted the case for next hearing on January 9, 2020.
Incidentally, this is not the first time the HC has pulled up the state government for bad roads. Making a similar observation in June this year, a Division Bench of the HC had directed all district collectors and the Chennai Corporation to submit reports on the number of complaints it received on the poor maintenance of roads and the action taken so far.
As per data submitted by the Tamil Nadu police on the number of fatal two-wheeler accidents across Tamil Nadu (excluding Chennai), till October 2019, 347 persons with helmets were killed in road accidents while 3,535 persons without helmets were killed in road accidents in the same period. Between November 2017 and October 2018, 4,480 persons who did not wear helmets were killed in road accidents.
As per the data, 47.87 lakh persons have been booked for not wearing helmets across the state, excluding Chennai, between January 1 and October 31 this year. The number of cases booked in Tamil Nadu (barring Chennai) from January 1 to October 31, 2018 stood at 25.50 lakh.
In 2019, Coimbatore district registered the maximum number of offenders at 2.43 lakh followed by Virudhunagar district at 2.26 lakh.
It has to be noted that although Tamil Nadu police claimed that the number of persons who did not wear helmets at the time of fatal accidents declined, there were many deaths in the state that occurred due to other factors. A recent example is 23-year-old Subhasri who was killed in September after a hoarding, put up by an AIADMK leader, turned into a death trap. The techie was wearing a helmet at the time of the accident. When the hoarding fell on her, she lost balance and fell on the road, but was run over by a tanker lorry.
Also read: 23-yr-old Chennai techie Subhasri killed after AIADMK leader’s hoarding turns death trap
Source: The News Minute