14-yr-old boy run over, traffic goes awry

14-yr-old boy run over, traffic goes awry
TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bangalore: A freak accident which claimed the life of a 14-year-old boy held up traffic on the busy Bangalore-Mysore highway for more than two hours on Wednesday. The victim is Chikkanna from Ramohalli on Mysore Road. Four others were injured, including a student from Rajarajeshwari College of Engineering, Raghavendra.
The tragedy occurred when the driver of a KSRTCowned bus lost control of the vehicle while trying to avoid the boy on the highway. The driver took a sudden turn, but ended up hitting Chikkanna and a traffic pole. That was not all. The bus jumped over the median and hit a lorry coming from the opposite direction. The bus driver and four persons travelling in the lorry were injured. The condition of lorry driver Bhaskar Kamble is said to be critical.
Traffic was affected between Rajarajeshwari arch and Ramohalli for more than two hours. “Thanks to the efforts of locals, traffic was diverted to small roads leading to Mysore Road. This eased congestion to an extent,’’ police said.
KILLER STRETCH
When a vehicle cruises along a highway at a speed of 80 km per hour, the driver should have clear visibility of minimum 250 mts. This is as per international road safety standards.
But on the 25-km highway stretch between the Ring Road Circle and Bidadi on Mysore Road, which has 18 critical curves, visibility for drivers drops to less than 100 mts.
While this is a major cause for accidents on Mysore Road, traffic experts point to other problems as well — lack of street lights, more intersections, haphazard pedestrian movement and the number of drain overbridges where the road width can’t be increased further.
“There are more than 18 horizontal and vertical curves between the Ring Road junction and Bidadi, which can turn hazardous for drivers. These curves are the only grey areas in the fourlane highway,’’ said a traffic expert.
The experts called for increase in ‘sight distance’, and felt openings in the medians at regular intervals should be avoided.