Karnataka   

Highways remain death traps Law & order

Four farmers from Chintamani taluk, who were transporting tomatoes to Bangalore in a goods vehicle, were killed on the spot when their vehicle rammed a stationary truck in Hoskote taluk of Bangalore Rural district early on Thursday.

An employee of the Indian Institute of Science, Lakshman Nayri, his wife and 10-year-old daughter died when their van collided with a truck on National Highway 4 in Nelamangala police station limits on Tuesday.

These incidents have again highlighted that the national and State highways that pass through Bangalore Rural and Ramanagara districts still continue to be death traps.

After Bangalore city, the undivided Bangalore Rural district accounted for the highest number of fatal road accidents in the State. The number of such accidents that take place in Bangalore Rural annually is more than the total of such cases reported from any eight districts of the State.

More than 600 people are killed in road accidents every year in Bangalore Rural district, with the highest being on the Bangalore-Mysore highway, according to a senior police official.

While over 200 people die in road accidents between Kengeri and Srirangapatna on the Bangalore-Mysore Highway every year, about 100 of them are killed in Ramanagara and Channapatna taluks.

The other killer roads in Bangalore Rural district, according to the police, are the stretch of the National Highway 4 between Nelamangala and Dobbspet, Hoskote-Kolar Road and Nelamangala-Kunigal Road on National Highway 48, which is full of curves.

The police say that overtaking, which results in collision as it happened in Tuesday’s incident near Nelamangala, contributed to 90 per cent of these accidents.

Secondly, the absence of pedestrian subways and footbridges on these accident-prone roads was also contributing to the death of pedestrians in a big way.

Constructing road medians would greatly help in preventing collisions. Thus, to facilitate the construction of road medians and to ensure smooth flow of traffic, roads, culverts and bridges were being straightened and widened under the Karnataka State Highway Improvement Project, which was funded by the World Bank, the official said.

Clearing bushes and trimming trees on these roads had also been taken up regularly as they hindered traffic and also blurred the drivers’ vision.

Traffic education and caution signboards were also being installed on these roads, he said.

Though the State police had initiated some steps for preventing road accidents in Bangalore Rural and Ramanagara districts, the two districts lack infrastructure, (including staff, vehicles and gadgets) to tackle traffic-related problems.

In these districts, only Ramanagara town has a separate traffic police wing.

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