Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Thrissur cities have been ranked first, second and third respectively in the country for the highest number of `road rage' cases in 2015, as per the National Crime Records Bureau data released on Tuesday.
While Thiruvananthapuram had 12,440 cases of rash driving, 10,502 cases were reported from Kochi and 8068 from Thrissur. No other city in India has crossed 10000 such cases. Delhi stood at fourth place with around 7,400 cases. The lowest was Ludhiana with just three cases.
In the fifth position as well, a Kerala city made the list as 6661 cases were reported from Kozhikode.
The NCRB report contained data for 53 major cities in India, and there were 1,10,266 cases reported in total.
Kerala State Transport Commissioner S Aanantha Krishnan told The News Minute that effective policing could be one of the reasons for the increased number of cases from the state.
“In Kerala, registration of such cases is the highest. Enforcement is very effective here, especially in drunken driving and many other road rage cases. Accidents might be high here, but many other factors will be there. It is not a fault of the state, we will analyse all factors,” he said.
Meanwhile, in a Times of India report, the Director of Indian Institute of Road Safety Upendra Narayanan said that unhealthy practices are responsible for the high number of cases in Kerala.
“Unhealthy competitive driving is high in Kerala where people do not show patience while driving. In cities like Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi, the roads are narrow and populated by vehicles. Competitive driving is done to compensate the time lost due to bad road conditions. Due to poor public transport facilities, people are commuting using their own vehicles. Also, high stress adds to such cases,“ he told ToI.