PNP proposing road cash probe division as more die from road accidents

September 30, 2017

Rising number of deaths from vehicular accidents has prodded the Philippine National Police - Highway Patrol Group (PNP-HPG) to propose a road crash investigation division (RCID).

HPG director Chief Superintendent Arnel Escobal said in ther proposal, the division would probe traffic accidents using scientific method and forensics.

“We are proposing the creation of this unit in order to determine what really causes these accidents,” said Escobal.

The HPG said 2,144 died from at least 32,000 vehicular accidents in 2016, caused mainly by reckless driving.

Fatalities are 106.15 percent higher compared to 1,040 in 2015. The number of vehicular mishaps rose by 30.87 percent, from 24,656 in 2015 to 32,269  the following year.

Around 1,380 people were killed in 18,858 vehicular accidents from January to August this year, more than half from number of deaths for 2016.

Escobal said they plan to hire engineers as members of the planned special investigating team which will be under the HPG. “Initially, we need about six engineers and we want to train them on traffic management,” Escobal said.

Technical persons were sought for the investigating team because the HPG wants to  look at the condition of private and public utility vehicles involved in an accident.

“We do not want to call this as accidents but road crashes because we want to impose more liabilities on the drivers.” said Escobal.

Of the overall number of vehicular accidents, 18,501 or 57.33 percent took place at daytime while 13,768 or 42.66 percent were at night.

Based on  HPG records, 26,623 cases or 82.50 percent were caused by reckless driving such as bad turning, improper overtaking, overspeeding and drunk driving. DMS