Ghaziabad: At least one person died on Ghaziabad roads every day in the first five months of this year, with fatality rates in crashes rising 12% from the same period last year, data shared by the traffic department showed.From Jan to May, the city reported 461 accidents, in which 186 people were killed and 342 injured. During the corresponding period last year, the city saw almost as many crashes — 459 — but fewer deaths, at 165, while 346 people were injured.Additional DCP (traffic) Varun Kumar Singh said rash driving and speeding accounted for the maximum accidents across the district. A study of cases from Jan to May found that more than 30% of accidents were caused by rash driving and over 15% by overspeeding.Illegal parking of vehicles, including along the Delhi-Meerut Expressway (DME) and Eastern Peripheral Expressway (EPE), contributed to more than 30% of accidents district-wide, Singh said, adding that a special traffic team had been deployed to clear vehicles from the expressway.Ten accidents were reported on the DME during the period, which left 10 dead and nine injured. Investigations found nearly half of these accidents involved banned vehicles — two-wheelers and three-wheelers — entering the expressway. Traffic police have been deployed at DME entry and exit points to stop such vehicles, though bikers continue to enter from the Delhi and Meerut sides, Singh said, adding that violators are being fined Rs 20,000.Two accidents in May were linked to potholes, Singh said. On May 2, Bacchu (27), a resident of Masuri, died after his motorcycle was hit by a truck on NH-9 near Holy Cross Hospital while he was travelling to work. Investigators found the truck driver lost control of the vehicle after hitting a pothole.On May 17, in Vijay Nagar, a truck driver failed to spot a pothole obscured by waterlogging from a drain and lost balance, hitting Hari Om Sharma, a resident of Siddharth Vihar, who had stepped out for a walk. FIRs were registered in both cases, and the drivers were taken into custody, police said.In other incidents, two people, including a minor, were killed on May 12 in an accident at Meerut Tiraha, under Sihani Gate police station limits. Police said neither of the two friends riding the motorcycle was wearing a helmet. On April 16, three people — two from the same family and a bike-taxi rider — were killed after being run over by a minibus on the DME near IPEM College.On March 26, a 35-year-old clerk employed at a private firm in Delhi was killed on Hapur Mor, under Kotwali police station limits, after the scooter he was riding was hit by a private bus. A day earlier, a 42-year-old man died near Lal Kuan flyover, under Kotwali police station limits, after an unidentified vehicle hit his motorcycle from behind near the Bikaner cut. He succumbed to his injuries.
