Despite the fatal accident on Sunday morning at Cyber City underpass, traffic violations continue. Experts debate the deeper causes.
Violations like jaywalking and wrong-side driving continue on Golf Course Road and authorities concerned keep strategising on their next course of action, with no real implementation. Two days after two people were killed and one injured when a Mahindra Scorpio, driving in the wrong lane, rammed into a Swift Dzire in an underpass on Golf Course road, things haven’t changed much!
Traffic officials are expected to take up the grave issue of road safety on Golf Course Road with DLF and HUDA. It is also going to carry out a surprise drive against traffic violations in the area.
“There is no fixed schedule of carrying out drives to check traffic violations, and most drives are carried out at the spur of the moment to catch violators off-guard,” commented ACP (traffic) Sandeep Malik.
HUDA administrator Chandra Shekhar Khare said, “I will speak with the concerned officials regarding the issues faced by commuters on the Golf Course Road and see what needs to be done to improve road safety.”
The accident that happened on Sunday morning has left experts debating on the issue of safety on Golf Course Road. Apart from an absence of checks, they have blamed the accident on a lack of signages and improper design of the road.
One of the major problems on the Golf Course Road, they maintain, is that it has not been designed like an arterial city road but more like a national highway.
“City roads, such as the Golf Course Road, cannot have turns located at a great distance and be signal-free. There are several residential as well as commercial complexes on both sides of the road, which require at-grade crossings and smooth entry and exists. Thus, before giving a high-speed corridor to commuters similar to that of a national highway, authorities needed to think about the land use,” explained Sarika Panda Bhatt of World Resources Institute (WRI), India.
Absence of proper signages is yet another problem, feel experts.
Professor Sewa Ram of School of Planning and Architecture opined, “Lack of signages creates confusion and prompts motorists to station their vehicles on the side of the road, or drive on the wrong side of the road. This increases the chances of accidents.”
