The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Will killer lorries ever be reined in?

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 25, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Will killer lorries ever be reined in?

More people are killed in accidents as undisciplined drivers are allowed to go scot-free, says K. Manikandan

This is probably the question in the mind of every single person waiting for their loved ones to return home and also every motorist wanting to reach his or her destination safely in the southern suburbs of Chennai.

Though the menace of lorries here has assumed dangerous proportions, snuffing out precious and innocent lives every other day, nothing has been done to check them.

A fortnight ago, a youth heading towards Tambaram on a motorcycle was involved in a head-on collision with a lorry on the Grand Southern Trunk Road at Irumbuliyur. The lorry, headed to Chengalpattu, was being driven on the wrong side. The youth was lucky to escape unhurt.

But a couple of days before a 28-year-old woman was not as lucky. She fell victim to an over-speeding lorry near the Tambaram bus stand. In the absence of concerted efforts to rein in undisciplined lorry drivers, more and more people are falling prey to road accidents involving these heavy vehicles. Despite a visible increase in the strength of traffic police, there seems to be no end to the menace, especially on arterials roads of the southern suburbs.

The latest accident, where a speeding sewage cleaning tanker killed a six-year-old boy at Madambakkam, has left residents in the locality furious. A day after the accident, Dilip Kumar a youth running a shop on Madambakkam Main Road, decided to install warning signs.

Every day, batches of traffic policemen could be seen at odd hours intercepting two-wheeler riders and harassing them in the name of regular checks.

The policemen would even penalise them under some excuse or the other, while remaining mute spectators to over-speeding and rash driving by heavy vehicles, Kumar said. Several lives could have been saved had there been an initiative from the police, transport and highways departments to discipline drivers of heavy vehicles and to bring at least a semblance of order on the roads.

Though there is a restriction on the entry of lorries on GST Road between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. and between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m., many lorries enter it through lanes and by-lanes.

With the menace caused by heavy vehicles growing by the day, safety has taken the backseat, say activists. Speed guns are unheard of in the southern suburbs.

Warning boards, caution signs indicating speed limits, lane markings and other signs are non-existent.

Unlike in the city, where the traffic police conduct regular awareness programmes, nothing of the sort is done. Activists want a separate control for traffic in the suburbs on the lines of the master control in the city.

It should have dedicated hotlines for people to complain about rash driving, over-speeding and other traffic complaints.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail