Sri Lanka - Sri Lanka Police Road Accident Statistics - 1984

- v1.0 : Full edited dataset, for internal DPD use.

2009-03-16

Traffic Police Headquarters was established in 1953 and it assists the Inspector General of Police in taking decisions on traffic policies and thereafter it helps to implement them and closely monitor implementation. Policing of road traffic in Sri Lanka has become a major task for the Police. Implementation and Enforcement of regulations and Laws comes through powers vested on the Police by the Motor Traffic Act of 1951.The necessity to form a separate unit to control traffic within the city was recognized in 1950 by the Colombo Metropolitan Police. Due to the increase in volume of road traffic in the island the Traffic Headquarters was inaugurated in 1953 to cover the entire island.

Every station presently maintains a traffic branch. These officers have undergone extensive training in vehicle examining, traffic accident investigations and court procedures

The Traffic Administration and Road Safety Range has been formed under the supervision of a DIG at the Police Headquarters for the purpose of bringing under its control the growing number of motor vehicles that converge on to the main thoroughfares everyday. This Range is also responsible for the prevention of motor accidents from occurring, together with protecting property from such motor accidents, and also issuing circular instructions to all the Territorial Police in order to implement a better traffic management in the county. In order to carry out these tasks in an organized manner throughout the country, Traffic Branches have been formed in each of the Police Stations in the County. Range Traffic Divisions also have been set-up to supervise and guide these traffic branches who should liaise with the respective Range DIG's and the Police Headquarters Traffic Range.

Functions of the Traffic Headquarters

A senior Superintendent is attached to Traffic Police headquarters supervised by Senior DIG Traffic Administration and Road safety/DIG Traffic administration and Road safety designated as Director Traffic Administration and Road safety Traffic, Headquarters" His functions will include among other things, the following:-

To keep the Island's accident statistics.

To coordinate with RDA and other stake holders in order to identify Black Spot areas and to attend to Road infrastructure defects and to make preventive action.

To direct accident preventive action;

To examine the working of Divisional/District Traffic/Traffic Branches, with a view to bringing about co-ordination and uniformity in the methods of handling traffic problems throughout the Island

To co-ordinate with Ministry of Highways, Ministry of Transport, Commissioner General of Motor Traffic, National Road Safety Secretariat and other stake holders with regard to Traffic Administration & Road Safety.

The Police stations which are dealing with traffic activities are bound to record day to day road accidents they investigate on a common entry form. Based on the information in the entry form, each police station manually prepares an end of the month report and submits it to the Research and Planning Division of the Police Headquarters in Colombo for statistical purposes. This is called the Police Department Road Accident Report. The Department of Police is using the above report as the source document to extract road accident statistics.

Administrative records data [adm]

In this record keeping activity the unit of analysis is the accident investigated by a police officer.