Mumbai-Bangalore NH: Structural flaws result in regular accidents

Fatal accidents on the 34-km stretch of Mumbai-Bangalore highway has become a regular occurrence in recent times. As many as 110 fatal accidents have occurred in the last three years in the Pune city limits of this highway stretch, claiming the lives of 111 people. The city traffic police has identified 20 accident prone spots where accidents regularly occur. They have send a report to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), Pune, in this regard.

Structural flaws due to lack of co-ordination between contractors and sub-contractors:

Among the 111 victims, 43 of them were pedestrians while 50 were two-wheeler riders. Dwelling on the reasons for the accidents, the traffic police found that most of them were caused due to structural flaws in the construction of the highway. This was attributed to the fact that there was lack of co-ordination between the contractors entrusted by the NHAI, and the sub-contractors who were delegated the work. The report of the findings were send to the NHAI and the contractor.

Flaws noticed at accident-prone spots:

Some common flaws were noticed in these accident-prone spots. One of the flaws noticed was with regards to breaks in the dividers, which were used by pedestrians and two-wheeler riders to cross the roads. Besides, there were many spots where the service road would merge with the main highway, without any signage boards or flash lights as pointers. It was also seen that the protective railing was absent at many places while the trees planted on the dividers were of irregular height or were absent at many places. Moreover, insufficient subways and over-bridges were also cited as reasons for the occurrence of accidents in these spots.

Structural changes recommended:

The report send by the Pune traffic police to the NHAI includes detailed structural changes that need to be made so as to prevent accidents along the accident-prone spots. Breaks on the dividers and medians are a major cause of accidents. Considering that these breaks are not in the NHAI plan, there are no signages to point them out to oncoming traffic. Most of the accidents are caused when two-wheeler riders who try to cross the highway at these breaks get hit by speeding vehicles coming from either side of the highway.