Bengaluru: Rice-laden lorry overturns near Hebbal skywalk; hits traffic for 3 hours

Bengaluru: A lorry laden with rice overturned near the Esteem Mall skywalk on Hebbal Main Road on Monday morning, triggering a gridlock that lasted over three hours.

No casualties were reported.

The lorry, bearing Andhra Pradesh registration AP 02 TE 5889 and carrying 30 tonnes of rice from Anantapur, struck a road divider and overturned around 5 am.

The Hebbal Traffic Police said the driver had fallen asleep at the wheel.

Though the accident occurred in the early hours, it paralysed traffic between 8 am and 11 am, a peak window for IT professionals and airport-bound commuters, with vehicles crawling bumper-to-bumper.

While police attributed the crash to driver fatigue, commuters pointed to poor road design at the spot by the National Highways Authority of India.

“This is a failure of the NHAI Regional Office, Bengaluru,” alleged a regular commuter of the stretch.

“They allow vehicles to halt randomly near the skywalk, and there is a poorly placed hump right at the down ramp. It is a perfect recipe for any heavy, overloaded lorry to lose control. While the traffic police did a commendable job helping clear the spilled goods, the infrastructure itself is a hazard.”