Bhubaneswar: In an important move to prevent road accidents in Odisha, the State Road and Transport department has decided to replace traditional speed breakers with rumblers.
According to sources, the government has decided to remove all speed breakers from National and State Highways in a month and replace them with rumblers within a month. The government hopes that this step will help prevent road accidents.
Moreover, an awareness drive will be conducted for drivers and in case of over speeding and overloading provisions have been made to seize the vehicle and cancellation driving licenses.
Sources informed that all these steps will be implemented within a month following which a review meeting will be held to take stock of the situation.
“We have observed that 72% deaths due to road accident below the age of 45 and 63% of the victims are between 21-44 age group. Keeping in mind the accidents in Angul and other places we are working towards creating awareness among the drivers. We have asked the National Highway and Public Works department authorities to replace the speed breakers with rumblers through which such accidents can be stopped. We have decided to complete all these within a month,” said Transport minister Ramesh Majhi.
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Notably, data suggests that 98% of the road accidents occur on account of driver's irresponsibility. While, 39% of the accidents happen due to over speeding, 36% occur due to overloading and 9.31% due to drunken driving.
“The drivers who arrive at a bus stand have no place to stay. We have asked the government to provide a room with air conditioning at every bus terminals across the State,” said President of the private bus owners association, Devendra Sahoo.
“The State government should many bays within a distance of around 20 KM for parking trucks. The NHAI authorities have already agreed for such an arrangement,” said State truck owners association general secretary Ravi Satpathy.