JOIN USPoor works led to Bidadi mishap
Sources in the department said, the Commissioner for Transport and Road Safety, Bhaskar Rao who visited Bidadi along with officials to assess the accident has found flaws in design on the Bangalore-Mysore expressway.
Among them is the low height of road dividers that could force over-speeding vehicles to topple and fall on on-coming traffic, a sure disaster!
A recce by Deccan Herald in Bidadi has revealed that the highway from Bangalore to Mysore at Bidadi is in the shape of a saucer that could pose a risk to high speeding motorists.
Only tip of iceberg
Senior officials from the department now say that the Bidadi accident as well as scores of others that occur on highways on a daily basis is just the tip of the iceberg, so far as road engineering goes.
Service roads must
“First and foremost service roads are a must along all State and National highways and expressways. These don’t exist on most of the roads. Then you have ribbon development, viz lot of commercial activities that run along the highway. This leads to motorists residing in villages along the highway to park their vehicles on the highways, a risk in itself,” a senior transport department official observed.
These flaws needs to be addressed. High velocity vehicles further increases this risk,” he added.
IRC guidelines
Prof M N Sreehari, a member of Agenda for Bengaluru Infrastructure Development (ABIDe) and a road traffic engineer said that Indian Road Congress (IRC) guidelines clearly stipulate that road dividers on highways should have a height of 45 cms.
“Most of them have dividers that are just 30 cms. The Bangalore-Mysore expressway is no exception. It also has lot of curves and unwanted road humps. Rash driving on such roads only cause accidents,” pointed out Sreehari.
Transport Commissioner Bhaskar Rao opined, “Road engineering aspects need to be examined. Height of road dividers need to be raised. The concept of service roads should be incorporated while planning and constructing high speed roads.”
He added that, drivers lacking good driving skills and quality, only compounds the problem. Then, the issue of stationary goods heavy vehicles on highways can also result in speeding buses, trucks ramming into them. “The department will recommend for a road safety audit soon,” Rao said.