MD of BMTC said 69 cases of bus accidents in 2015-2016. According to Traffic Police data, 39,494 cases were booked between January and November 2016.
Recently, BMTC Managing Director Ekroop Caur, claimed that accident rates involving state buses have come down. As per her statement, in 2013-14 the number of bus accident was 88, and in 2015-16 it is 69.
Speaking at the road safety week, she said that the authority conducted many campaigns on road safety. Also, the bus drivers were sensitised to bring down the accident rates in the city.
In the recent past, the transport corporation has taken various measures to prevent road accidents involving its buses. In the mid-December, BMTC cancelled the fitness certificates of 21 buses used as school buses. Earlier, all these 21 buses were booked for not complying with the safety measures guidelines of SC.
In 2015, after an incident involving a trainee driver, the corporation conducted a programme to train 220 accident-prone drivers and habitual traffic offenders. This special programme was conducted at the BMTC central training centre in Vaddarahalli.
For future, BMTC plans to have retrofitting rear view mirrors and pneumatic doors on the buses said the Managing Director of the corporation. Also, the transport corporation is starting 'Training for Trainers' programme to train their trainers. Reward to drivers with accident-free records, penalty on traffic rule-breakers and Sarathi squad are other measures taken by the BMTC.
Interestingly, according to traffic police data between January and November last year, 39,494 cases have been booked by city traffic police against the BMTC buses, meaning, on an average, 118 cases were booked everyday for violating various traffic rules.
BMTC's claim is a good sign for the city, but the city traffic police's data shows that the number of accidents might have come down, but the corporation buses are far from following traffic rules.
