M A I N   N E W S

Speed-breakers become status symbol
From Raman Mohan

HISAR, July 5 — Illegally built speed-breakers on national and state highways have become a status symbol for villages in Haryana, exposing motorists to robberies and mishaps. The more defiant a village, more the number of speed breakers it has. In fact, speed breakers have become the yardstick for measuring the nuisance value of the village concerned for the area’s politicos.

The situation has come to such a pass that the Hisar-Delhi section of National Highway No 10 now has a record 60 speed breakers on a 165-km stretch — one for every 2.7 km. Over the past few years the average journey time on this section of the highway has increased by more than 45 minutes. Fuel consumption and engine damage have also shown an upward graph.

Over the past few years there has been a considerable increase in the number of robberies on the highways. Since vehicles are forced to slow down almost to a halt, motorists are waylaid by and robbed of their valuables and in many cases even their cars. Armed culprits park their vehicle near one of the many speed breakers in the dark and wait for motorists to slow down. They immediately surround the vehicle brandishing firearms and loot the passengers. Generally, the culprits hail from the village itself and are involved in building these obstacles.

Recently, the Vice-Chancellor of a local university was returning here from Delhi around midnight when armed robbers surrounded his private car as it slowed down at a speed breaker at Mayyar village, 15 km from here. He recalled that the presence of mind of his friend who was accompanying him saved them when he directed the driver to speed and run over the robbers. They contacted the district police chief on their mobile phone but the culprits had fled by the time the police arrived. Many others, however, have not been as lucky.

Most of these structures are until and without reflectors to warn the motorists. At times white strips are painted on these but these last only a few days. Generally, the villagers fix two to three small pillars on both sides of the structure but even these are hardly noticeable. Many of those who travel frequently on the road now depend on their memory while others drive slow as a precautionary measure.

The craze for speed breakers began around the time of the infamous Meham mayhem in 1989. Many villages raised speed breakers at the entry and exit points during the campaigning for the byelection on the pretext of checking mishaps. The real reason, however, was to force buses to a stop to pick up villagers as long-route buses did not stop there. The first such structure was built at the two ends of Bhaini Maharajpur village of Meham.

The trend soon caught up as schoolchildren found it easier to board buses as these slowed down at speed breakers. Most other villages of the area followed suit as the national highway authorities failed to demolish these under political and public pressure.

The virus spread to other parts of the state soon thereafter. However, it affected the Deswali belt comprising Rohtak, Jind, Jhajjar, Sonipat and parts of Hisar districts the most. The Bagri belt comprising Hisar, Fatehabad and Sirsa districts was the least affected. That is why the Dabwali-Sirsa-Hisar section of National Highway No. 10 does not have speed breakers, except at a couple of busy crossings.

The official laxity led to a race among villages of Meham and Rohtak area to build road obstacles and the number of speed breakers became the yardstick of a village’s political influence or more appropriately its nuisance value. As a result, most villages falling on the two sides of the national highway in Meham and Rohtak areas have more than half a dozen speed breakers each. Villagers built these themselves in the oddest possible designs. They first line up bricks across the road and later cover it with bitumen and pebbles.

Unable to remove these, the national highway authorities put up signboards at accident-prone spots warning motorists about speed breakers ahead. The villagers, however, took this as tacit approval of the government to these structures.

All speed breakers were removed after the change of guard in the state in 1991. A VVIP who happened to travel from Delhi to Hisar after the assembly poll hurt his head as the car failed to slow down at one of the speed breakers near Meham, it is learnt. He ordered all speed breakers be demolished immediately.

However, Meham soon had its legislator elevated to the rank of Cabinet Minister and the speed breakers reappeared within months. Information gathered from other parts of the state indicates that even link roads now have a large number of speed breakers although mercifully the authorities have not let this trend affect the most important highway — the G.T. Road (National Highway No. 1). The menace has assumed such proportions that most residential colonies, too, have speed breakers near residences of important and not so important residents.

Mr R.K. Gandhi, Executive Engineer (National Highway-II) told The Tribune here today that no speed breakers were allowed on national highways anywhere in the country. He admitted that any such structures were illegal. He said the national highway authorities removed these structures from time to time but at many places villagers created law and order problems making their task difficult.

Another senior functionary of the department, nevertheless, admitted on condition of anonymity that no efforts were made to remove these because of political pressure from legislators concerned. At times the department itself had to build speed breakers under pressure from the villagers and politicians. This usually happened in the aftermath of a mishap. Pointing to the warning signs put up by the authorities, he said these had legitimised the structures.

However, the villagers blame overspeeding for building the speed breakers. They claim that speed breakers were put up only when an accident involving pedestrians occurred.