MTC drivers behave better last year; still killed 68 persons on city roads

CHENNAI: Metropolitan Transport Corporation bus drivers have shown a marginal improvement in their on-road behaviour compared to previous years. However, they still caused death of 68 persons in as many fatal accident cases last year and were involved in another 227 non-fatal accident cases.
Compared to 79 fatal cases in 2008 and 74 in 2009, MTC buses were involved in 68 fatal accident cases last year.The number of non-fatal cases also showed a decline in comparison with previous years. In 2008, MTC buses were involved in 334 non-fatal cases. This number came down to 285 in 2009 and 227 in 2010.
Similarly the number of motor vehicle cases, booked mainly for traffic rules violations, also showed a decline in 2010. There is a general accusation against the traffic police that they are biased in favour of MTC drivers and seldom book cases against them when they break traffic rules.
According to statistics available with TOI, in 2008, the city traffic police booked 11,216 motor vehicle cases against MTC and collected a fine of Rs 4,22,750. The number of cases came down to 5,287 in 2009 and the fine amount was also halved in to Rs 2,04,750.
In 2010, the traffic cops booked only 3,047 cases against MTC drivers and a fine of only Rs 40,670 was collected. Additional commissioner (traffic) M Ravi had in a recent press conference said that police never hesitated from initiating action against errant MTC drivers and had detained many buses. He said police promptly fined MTC drivers for their traffic violations.
According to traffic police sources, in the fatal accidents involving MTC buses, most people killed were pedestrians. The second-largest number of victims of such accidents were two-wheeler riders. Pedestrians were killed mainly when they tried to cross the roads. Police sources also said that the average age of two-wheeler riders fatally knocked down by MTC buses was well below 30.
eom/praveen.kumar8@timesgroup.com