Cyclists and two-wheeler riders unsafe on Goan roads

PANAJI: Safety of cyclists on Goan roads has come under a dark cloud spelling worry for the growing cyclist community in the state.
The year 2017 saw an exponential rise in the deaths of cyclists on Goan roads as against the previous year. The number of deaths of cyclists increased by 350 per cent in the last year alone.
In 2016, only two cyclists had died in road accidents. However, in 2017, the number has increased to nine.
Last year saw a total of 3,918 road accidents, of which 316 were fatal killing 328 persons. Of these nine were cyclists, 193 persons were two-wheeler riders, 48 were pedestrians and 39 were pillion riders.
The trends also showed that four-wheeler users were relatively safer than those opting to walk it out or to cycle the all way.
The data has been made available by Traffic Police department. It was disclosed that 5.20 lakh traffic violations were booked in 2017 and a total of Rs 6.39 lakh was collected in fines.
There has been a rise of around 26 per cent in grievous accidents over the last year and the number of grievous injuries sustained in road accidents has doubled. This speaks volumes about the growing severity of road accidents in the state despite the enormous efforts being made by authorities to enforce traffic rules and to instill awareness about traffic dicipline among road users.

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