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It has been mentioned many times in this column that the road dividers (central medians) on highways and flyovers are inadequate. Now it is the turn of the city road dividers to come under scrutiny. In a recent accident, the driver of a taxi and two youngsters, both students, lost their lives in a bizarre accident. It happened on the Sector 17-18 divider road.
So here is what probably happened. The Audi moved too close to the central divider. The tyre scraped the divider and burst (one report does confirm this). There is no other reason for the tyre to burst on Chandigarh roads which are about the smoothest roads in the country. And being an Audi Q7 it must have had the best tyres available. This destabilised the Audi, it hit a pole, climbed the divider, flew over and landed on the taxi coming from the opposite direction. The Administration has to rethink dividers. There were adequate when Ambassadors and Premiers crawled the roads. They had 14 or 15 inch tyres. They could not cross this divider which any S.U.V. today can do with the greatest of ease. The smallest tyre size on any SUV is 18- inches. The Mercedes GL350 has 21-inch tyres. These are truck size tyres. The present-day dividers are totally inadequate to prevent an S.U.V. crossing over. What is required are steel railings on our main roads and busy sector divider roads like on highways as in the upper photograph. The lower photograph shows the impact absorbing capability of steel railings. We have the most modern cars on our roads, but the roads are not capable of handling the cars. Their size and speed being the biggest challenge. Sad to say, the powers that be have failed to see this problem. Is it apathy or sheer incompetence? Years ago Madhya Marg was divided. Bouganvillea was planted and barbed wire strung up. The barbed wire is gone, the bougainvillea has been trampled by the thousands of pedestrians who cross Madhya Marg daily, risking life and limb. All this has failed to send a message to the authorities who seem to be asleep with their eyes wide open. Maybe these statistics could jolt someone into action. Last year 1.46.000 Indians were killed on Indian roads. The highest in the world. 40,000 of these were pedestrians. Every tenth person who dies in a road accident around the world is an Indian. These are horrifying figures. Yet no one seems to be moved by them. Happy Motoring !
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An Audi heading North
climbed the road divider, got air borne, flew over the divider and
landed on a taxi on the other side of the road divider, killing three
on the spot. One does not have to be Sherlock Holmes to re-construct
the scene. The accident happened shortly after mid-night. Chances are
the driver was alcohol-propelled. Which means the Audi was at speed.
It goes from 0-100 km.p.h. in about 7 seconds. The behemoth weighs in
at about 2.5 tons and has huge 18-inch tyres. It is designed to climb
over any type of obstacles being an acknowledged off-roader. A street
divider only 12-15cm high and not even a meter wide is not an
obstacle. It's about the same on the Zirakpur Flyover.