Research Article
Amit Ghosh , Suman Paul
Abstract
Each year more than 1.2 million people die in road accident around the World. The majority of this death (about 50%) is of pedestrians, cyclist and bikers. The traffic accident situation in Kolkata police station boundary as well as India is really alarming and the loss of lives and property damages are expected to continue if proper corrective measure are not taken accordingly by applying proper engineering measure through extensive research and investigations. This paper presents the various aspects of traffic accidents in Kolkata city in West Bengal, India. Data on accidents were collected from Lal Bazar, Police Head Quarters in the city for three years (i.e. 2007-’09). It was found that a total 7217 accidents occurred during this period. Almost 25 per cent victims were between ages 18 to 30 years. Pedestrians are the worst victims of road accidents and accounted for 17.9 per cent deceased and 82.1 per cent injured. Bus and truck accidents comprise 21 per cent city road accidents. The analysis results also show the nature of contributory factors and hourly distribution of accidents occurred most frequently. Therefore, some safety measures and long term recommendations are made to improve the situation of Kolkata.