Natpac study finds 67 black spots in Ernakulam district

KOCHI: A recent study conducted by National Transportation Planning and Research Centre (Natpac) found that there are 67 black spots in Ernakulam, where a lot of accidents were reported. Of these, 35 are on state highways and 31 on national highways.
The report, which was prepared after Kerala Road Safety Authority issued a directive, said that 20% of the total accidents in Ernakulam occurred at such spots.The guidelines of ministry of road, transport and highways state that an area can be named black spot if five to ten fatal accidents occurred along a 500m-stretch over a three-year period.
Among the black spots in Ernakulam, Karukutty topped the list with an accident severity index (ASI) rate of 500. Most mishaps were reported on the 0.65km stretch on the Salem-Ernakulam national highway. The other major black spots are Edappally (ASI: 379) and Perumbavoor junctions (ASI: 373).
NHAI rules stipulate that all hazardous stretches, whose ASI value were above the threshold value of 178.03, were considered as first order black spots. In case of secondary and tertiary spots, the ASI values must be between 178.03 and 141.7 and 141.74 and 105.44 respectively. Of the 67 spots, 16 each fell in the first and second categories, while the rest were in the third category.
Ebin Sam, a junior scientist who was part of the study, said: “We were instructed to identify black spots in Kerala. We first conducted a study in Ernakulam where the number of accidents is high. We found that 48% of the total accidents occurred at Karukutty, involving pedestrians, over a three-year period.“
An official with the road safety authority said that a study was commissioned to identify black spots to implement necessary measures and thus reduce the number of accidents. “As part of this initiative we have asked all district-level road safety authorities to submit a list of road overbridges that need to be set up in locations where a large number of accidents are reported. But we got only a list from Thiruvananthapuram. We had issued reminders to district-level officials in vain,“ he said.
Meanwhile DCP Arul R B Krishna said that accidents on highways can be reduced by limiting the number of crossings and keeping barricades.
Kochi, we could bring down the number of fatalities (below 10) over the past five months following the implementation of traffic regulations. Earlier, the figure was 15-20 fatalities.“