Motor traffic accidents dropped by 10 percent during the last two weeks after the government announced heavy traffic fines on motorists, Police said.
Accidents dropped by about 10 percent during the last two weeks. The number of accidents reported daily is around 100-125 whereas it has now decreased to 90 to 100 incidents, Traffic Police Division ASP W. D. A. Dhananjaya said.
The daily statistics on victims hospitalised due to road accidents to the Colombo National Hospital Accident Ward has also gone down from 22 percent to 18 percent, National Coordinator of Training and team leader of Triage and Information Unit of National Hospital, Colombo, Pushpa Ramyani Zoysa said.
Meanwhile, Motor Traffic Department officials state that an increasing number of people have sought their service to obtain the driving license within the last two weeks.
Of the daily reported accidents, 40-50 are in the ‘critical’ range. More than 40, 000 accidents were reported to police in 2015. Of these, 2,799 were fatalities and 15,000 in the critically injured category.
According to police records, seven to eight persons died in road accidents in 2015/2016 which is an increase compared to 2014.
However, the number of deaths due to road accidents dropped during the last two weeks to five to six per day.
Police states that this drop is the result of the new rules and regulations introduced by the government to curb the number of road accidents.
It is a victory from the point of view of the public to witness a rapid transformation in driving attitudes and a drop in road accidents, as a result of the new rules and regulations introduced by the government to encourage safe driving, Finance Minster Ravi Karunanayake said.
The government is determined to ensure public safety and will not waver on its stand in this regard and give in to unreasonable demands of certain groups.
The government is thankful to the public for supporting it on these rules and regulations, Minister Karunanayake added.