Traffic Enforcement in Ahmedabad – True figures !

The number of vehicles in Ahmadabad have been increasing at a rate of 6% every year. That is a total of 1,20,000 vehicles are added to the vehicle population of the city every year. In comparison, the road length is increasing at a average rate of only 0.7%. This is causing a situation where more and more vehicles are getting packed into nearly the same space, causing increasing traffic congestions. Aside from the frequent traffic jams, this also causes more road accidents. In India as a whole, approximately 1,10,000 people die from road accidents every year. And this number is rising. This can be seen in Ahmedabad city also from the accident data quoted above. The number of fatalities has gone up from 162 in year 2001 to 244 in 2009. Fortunately, because of better traffic regulation and other factors, the fatalities in accidents is less this year as shown by the comparative figures of the first two months of 2008 and 2009. Against 70 fatalities in the first two months of 2008, there are only 35 fatalities in 2009: a welcome trend. Let’s hope it continues.

Because of increasing vehicle population and lack of traffic awareness, the traffic violations are also going up. Compared to 3,73,615 traffic spot fine cases in 2008, in 2008 these have gone up to 9,63,902. The trend can be seen in the comparative figures for the first two months of 2008 and 2009 also.

On one hand it shows better traffic law enforcement but on the other hand it also indicates the lack of awareness and compliance of traffic laws. We as citizens should pledge to follow traffic laws for our own and for others safety.

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