Times News Network

Bangalore, Feb 28: The IT capital this time has scored over the metros, second only to Delhi, in road accidents and related fatalities.

With a burgeoning traffic, 23.03 lac vehicles as on August 31, 2005, the Bangalore city police are also raking in the moolah collected through fines for traffic violation (Rs 17, 75, 27,380 in 2005). Mumbai traffic police collected Rs 10.11 lac.

According to a comparative analysis of traffic management in Bangalore city conducted by the Bangalore city police, 704 persons were killed in road accidents in 2005.

Delhi leads with 1,703 fatalities, Mumbai -595, Chennai - 463 and Kolkata - 442. The fatalities in the city, however, came down in 2005 as compared to 903 in 2004.

Bangalore has a road length of 4,500 km, while Delhi has over four times the length - 27,000, Mumbai -1,923, Chennai - 1,800 and Kolkota -1,400.

The officials have attributed the drop in the number of accidents to the introduction of one-ways. However, the increase in violations is due to an upsurge in vehicular population, they said.

The statistics pertain only to the Commissionerates, Bangalore - 800 sq km, Delhi - 1,483 sq km, Mumbai - 438 sq km, Chennai - 172 sq km and Kolkota 106 sq km.

Though Bangalore has the smallest population of 85 lac among the cities, its vehicle population (23.30) is higher than Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai.