CHENNAI: Bureaucratic delays and apathy in Chennai corporation not only cause bumpy rides but also cost lives. According to data from the Chennai traffic police, the corporation could be responsible for at least one fatal accident every day.

In 2012, 32 people died in head-on collisions and 15 people due to poor lighting, according to city police records. Data also shows that the biggest victims on the road are pedestrians as they are involved in more than one-fourth of road accidents in the city.

Traffic police officers say that having medians would reduce fatal accidents. "Most accidents happen on roads that do not have medians. We shift barricades during peak hours to ensure that people do not travel on the wrong side," said a senior police officer attached to the traffic investigation wing.

Of the 448 major roads (on which buses ply) maintained by the corporation, only 95 have medians. Officials say they are not keen on constructing more medians because they eat in to the carriageway and limit design and traffic re-engineering possibilities. "Once we build a concrete median, it becomes difficult to redirect traffic or make the road one-way for a few hours or during emergencies," said a senior corporation official. "When we want to redesign the road or extend it, we will have to break the median and reconstruct it," he said.

Another way to avoid head-on collisions is to ensure drivers don't use high-beam lights and cross the speed limit. "Roads should have high medians to beat the problem of high beams," said the police officer.

Roads such as 4th Avenue in Besant Nagar are broad and do not have medians and have street lights on one side. "It's a nightmare to ride on this road. The speed breakers are badly designed and the barricades are kept in different pattern every day," said Pranav Ramani from Adyar.

The civic body has ordered 1.1 lakh new street lights to light up 2,750km. The new lights will be provided to 1,020 roads without street lights and streets that are poorly lit despite the presence of street lights. "There are roads where the street lights are too far apart leaving stretches of darkness in between, or places where there is a tube light on an electricity board pole which is not up to our standards. Those will be rectified and replaced," said an official.