Robot Cop

Sri Lanka’s traffic police have sought new armory to force insurance companies to report road accidents, after discovering empty pages in national road safety records.







Sri Lanka’s traffic police have sought new armory to force insurance companies to report road accidents, after discovering empty pages in national road safety records. There has been an average 20 percent drop in reported accidents, which traffic police allege is not due to a good driving habits.

“There is a lot of road indiscipline now, people are not civic minded, they don’t respect others rights of way and so on.

But these things don’t figure in our statistics because the insurance company policies now encourage motorists not to get a police report,” laments Senior Superintendent of Police (City Traffic) Lucky Peiris.

For instance, the number of road accidents, including deaths, climbed up in 2004, but only 6,000 were reported to the police.

The mismatch in numbers, says Police Inspector (Statistics) Janaka Senadheera, is due to insurance companies settling claims without a police report.