Kochi: Lack of street lights causes road accidents, especially those involving pedestrians during the night.
“Pedestrians accounted for 19.5 pc in road accident fatalities during the year 2022, and 20.4 pc of accidents happened between 6 pm and 9 pm, showing the extreme importance of street lights in roads,” according to road safety volunteer C.J. Johnson, quoting National Crime Records Bureau, here on Friday.
“Unfortunately most of our roads in the country, including the National Highways, state owned roads, and other roads under the control of local self-governments, have no streetlight at all,” he said.
“Even in roads where street lights are available, the lighting is insufficient due to various reasons, including higher installation height of lamps, insufficient luminescence of the lamps used, shadow of trees, etc., and hence the lights do not serve the desired purpose,” he pointed out.
“As we are all aware, even when street lights are available, sometimes drivers may not see the pedestrians crossing the road from far, especially during the rainy season or when the pedestrians are wearing dark dresses. They will be seen only when the vehicle reaches very close to them, resulting in accidents. Then, there is no need to mention the case when there is no street light at all,” he said.
The National Highway, the Public Works Departments of all the states, and all local self-governments in the country must ensure that all roads under their control are installed with sufficient street lights on a war footing to save thousands of lives every year,” he said.
“All new roads under construction shall be deemed complete after the street lights are installed. Toll collection shall not be permissible without the installation of street lights,” he added.
“The cost involved in installation of street lights will be negligible when compared to the total cost spent for road construction of modern roads.”
