Footpaths are encroached in most of the commercial areas in city making it impossible for people to use
BENGALURU
For a city that prides itself on being India’s tech capital, Bengaluru remains alarmingly dangerous for people who walk its streets. Police data reveal that nearly 28 percent of all road fatalities in the city involve pedestrians, a pattern that shows no signs of reversing despite enforcement drives and infrastructure interventions. According to traffic police, 218 of the 763 people killed in road accidents across the city this year till November 30 were pedestrians. In 2024, 869 people lost their lives in road accidents and, of them, 246 were pedestrians, said a senior police official.
What’s striking is that these deaths often stem from preventable causes: rash driving, illegal parking on pavements and poor pedestrian infrastructure. Officials say pedestrians, especially senior citizens, are most vulnerable while crossing chaotic roads, navigating unmarked intersections, or walking on carriageways when footpaths are encroached upon, dug up or are broken. Pedestrian safety continues to be one of our biggest concerns, said a traffic police officer.
Many of these accidents occur because people are forced to step onto busy roads due to broken or dug-up pavements. We are trying to correct this through enforcement and design improvements, the officer added.
Home Minister G Parameshwara said city police have written to Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) to take up works related to improvement of pedestrian safety infrastructure such as installing skywalks at 101 locations, marking zebra crossing at junctions and illuminating streets on priority. GBA Chief Commissioner Maheshwar Rao, in a review meeting recently, instructed civic officials to identify 50 pedestrian-heavy locations that are in poor conditions in each zone across five corporations and expedite repair work.
Why is the city witnessing so many accidents, culminating in pedestrian deaths, when traffic is always in a crawl mode, and the total road network remains stagnant at 13,000km.
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Even the people are to be blamed, said the senior police officer. In 2024, traffic police booked around 1.2 lakh cases against motorists who parked their vehicles on pavements and another 17,000 cases for riding on them. Till October this year, 83,000 such parking violations and 14,719 riding-on-pavement offences have already been recorded.