Mumbai: Rampant speed limit violations in cities, says survey

Over 90% of the 35,000 plus surveyed vehicles violated speed limits in cities like Pune, Aurangabad, Nagpur and Nashik, covering 34 key roads, including highways like the Mumbai-Pune highway and the Pune-Bangalore highway, found a recent speed survey conducted by Parisar, an NGO from Pune, Similarly, the survey found that 83% of the drivers travelling on the Mumbai-Agra highway violated the speed limit, while 55% of the drivers travelling on the Pune-Bangalore highway, which has a speed limit of 50 km/h, violated the speed limit

Over 90% of the 35,000 plus surveyed vehicles violated speed limits in cities like Pune, Aurangabad, Nagpur and Nashik, covering 34 key roads, including highways like the Mumbai-Pune highway and the Pune-Bangalore highway, found a recent speed survey conducted by Parisar, an NGO from Pune,

HT Image

Similarly, the survey found that 83% of the drivers travelling on the Mumbai-Agra highway violated the speed limit, while 55% of the drivers travelling on the Pune-Bangalore highway, which has a speed limit of 50 km/h, violated the speed limit. So was the case on the Pune-Nashik highway where 80% of the drivers violated the speed limit

Following the survey, Parisar has written to the director-general of police (DGP) Sanjay Pandey to lower permissible speed limits in urban areas and to adopt appropriate and strong enforcement measures to curb speed violations across state.

“Our survey shows that vehicles are speeding with impunity. This is despite the fact that there is a minimum ₹1,000 fine for this offence,” said Ranjit Gadgil, program director, Parisar. “The Supreme Court-appointed Committee on road safety has also asked states to take ‘strong and urgent measures to deal with over speeding’ and directed them to suspend the violator’s licence for a period not less than three months. Enforcement of the speed law is not happening adequately,” he added.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau 7.58 lakh people lost their lives in road accidents in 2019. Maharashtra has ranked second for the maximum number of road accidents after Tamil Nadu. The state also stood in the second position in terms of fatalities in road accidents with 14,608 deaths in 2019.

According to the Maharashtra highway traffic police, 51,495 persons lost their lives in the state in road accidents between 2016 and 2019, while 82,527 people were seriously injured in road accidents in this period. According to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways report of 2019, Uttar Pradesh recorded the highest 22,655 road crash deaths or 15% of total deaths in 2019 across the country, followed by Maharashtra, which recorded 12,788 or 8.5% of the total deaths in India.

Sandeep Gaikwad, senior program associate at Parisar said, “We need to see enforcement agencies showing urgency to enforce speed laws on the road.”