Duty hours of traffic police in Delhi raised to check mishaps

Thursday, Nov 11, 2010



The presence of traffic policemen on roads helps bring down the number of accidents.

Keeping this finding from a study conducted by the Accident Research Cell of the Delhi Traffic Police in mind the department has extended duty hours of traffic policemen at major intersections in the Capital.

The study found that most accidents occurred when traffic policemen were not on duty.

It also showed that accident rates doubled in the late hours -- between 9 pm and midnight.

The duty hours of traffic personnel ended at 8 pm till last month.

Now, about 1,000 personnel are on duty till 11 pm. Ajay Chadha, special commissioner, Delhi Traffic Police, confirmed: "It was found that most accidents take place late at night. So we ordered the deployment of officers on roads till 11 pm."

Statistics reveal that when the Commonwealth Games were on in the Capital last month, around 3,500 traffic policemen were deployed on the Games routes alone. The rest monitored vehicles round the clock in the rest of the city.

The result was a 48 per cent decrease in accidents.

The Accident Research Cell conducted a time-wise analysis of accident figures to reveal that the accident rate doubled during the late hours.

While cars caused most deaths during the late hours, heavy trucks were also responsible for many casualties.

Few accidents were reported in the early morning hours, when there are very few vehicles on roads.

Original news source http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/119537/India/duty-hours-of-traffic-police-in-delhi-raised-to-check-mishaps.html