PUNE: Road accidents and fatalities in the city and the Pune rural region might have for the first time dipped marginally last year since 2015, but the numbers are still a cause for concern. Maharashtra highway police data revealed that road accidents claimed over 1,000 lives and left 1,195 people critically injured in the Pune rural region in 2018.In Pune city, the number of fatalities because of accidents was 362 in 2018. The data revealed that 607 people were seriously injured in road accidents last year in the city. Experts attributed most of the accidents and fatalities to rash and negligent driving, increasing vehicles, aversion to use helmets and, last but not the least, the bad road condition.A Maharashtra highway police officer told TOI most of the accidents could be attributed to human errors such as not following traffic rules and not paying attention to factors such as tyre inflation and wheel alignment.“A lot of times, motorcyclists can be seen riding on highways instead of taking the service roads. This is a major cause for accidents. The maximum accidents involve collision between motorcycles and four-wheelers. Speeding on the roads is another cause for concern,” the official said.In 2018, the officer said, the authorities identified and analyzed the “black spots” on all highways. “Short-term measures such as installing radium stripes and boards and dividers on highways were taken. Long-term measures such as building bridges, speed humps, underground runways and speed breakers on smaller roads connecting highways take time and are in a proposal stage,” he said.A senior state highway police officer said that data related to the city were of all roads and highways passing through the Pune city commissionerate and the Pimpri Chinchwad municipal limits.“In the rural belt, the accident data are for all state and national highways as well as roads in Pune district , including the internal state highways and the national highways such as Pune-Nashik, Pune-Satara, Pune-Ahmednagar, Pune-Mumbai expressway and the old NH4,” he said.The authorities attributed the marginal dip in accidents and deaths in 2018 to a better traffic management system on national highways following measures such as introduction of speed guns, strict enforcement of seat belt and helmet rules and penalty for not carrying licence and insurance papers.Road safety activist Ranjit Gadgil said the slight dip in the number of fatalities seemed to be a result of the steps the government has taken to ensure better enforcement of laws and pay attention to the road designs. “But losing over 350 lives to accidents in a city in a year is still unacceptable,” said Gadgil, who’s also the programme director of Parisar.

Stay updated with all the Pune Latest News headlines here. For more exclusive & live news updates from all around India, stay connected with NYOOOZ.