Highways become nightmare for pedestrians in Alappuzha

ALAPPUZHA: The highways in the district remain a nightmare for pedestrians as 16 of them have lost life in last two months. The official data show 10 percent of deaths are of pedestrians. Victims include five cyclists and 31 bike riders. Despite road safety week every year, 672 also got injured. District police chief S. Surendran said they happen mostly because of the lazy road crossing.  "We are analysing reasons of each pedestrian death and taking precautions against the repetition of it in a particular spot," he told DC.  "However, people are so lazy and disobeying the traffic rule. Most deaths happen at sundown."

Critics argue the capacity to respond to pedestrian safety is important to prevent them. Traffic safety expert Upendra Narayanan says the pedestrian safety gets neglected despite a thousand deaths every year.  "Pedestrian collisions should not be treated as inevitable like other crashes because they are both predictable and preventable," he says.

"Many factors are putting them at risk including the behaviour of drivers, lack of infrastructure like sidewalks, raised crosswalks, medians, the incompetence of traffic police and encroachments."  He suggests a comprehensive, holistic approach that includes enforcement, engineering and education, to avoid preventable loss of human life.  Accidents claim 11 lives and leave 117 injured in the state every day.  Till November, 4,131 people got killed, a sharp increase from just 2674 in 2001, and 42,671 injured in 38470 cases.