Karnataka—as indeed the rest of the country—has been witness to some horrendous accidents in recent times, thanks to corruption-laden testing and licensing; growing drink-and-drive recklessness; faster, more efficient vehicles; and sometimes better roads.
But does anything come close to these two ghastly accidents in the last two days?
The first (bottom picture) took place on the Mysore-Bangalore highway, near Channapatna, on Sunday. The driver of the Toyota Qualis reportedly swerved at high speed to avoid hitting a dog crossing the road. Result: the car hit the median divider, rolled over to the other side, and crashed into a bus speeding along in the opposite direction. Nine of a family dead.
The second (top picture) took place on the Mysore-Nanjangud road last evening. The driver of a large truck proceeding to pick up motorcycles from the TVS factory reportedly tried to avoid brushing a low-hanging branch of a tree. This caught the driver of a Tata Sumo proceeding in the opposite direction unawares. Result: Five, maybe seven, of a family dead.
A dog. A tree. And 14, maybe 16, of two families erased.
Photographs courtesy: The Hindu
churumuri 
So tragic and unfortunate for the families involved.
But surely, in both cases, nature is just incidental ?? Isn’t this badly designed highways. Highways in the US and Europe are lashed with snowstorms, and hurricanes but are still very safe compared to ours.
For all our IITs and “Indian brains”, and a scientist as the President etc, we are just morons with ZERO engineering skills.
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We probably have the engineering skills. But there is no system to allow the best skills to be chosen and allowed to design and build the highways (and indeed the whole transportation infrastructure). Just mediocre (or worse) people do something to meet some short term needs based on outdated plans, ideas and technology. All the while collecting some ‘cut’ for themselves. Maybe highway road building should now be privatised with necessary checks and balances? And all related government departments shut down to save a lot of money (and taxes)? But discipline in driving, following basic rules etc. – isnt it the drivers’ responsibility as much as it is the person giving the license/enforcing discipline (which of course doesnt happen here).
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Nice blog!
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Highways are safe when people stick to traffic rules and do not overspeed. Accidents happen even on roads like the Pune-Mumbai expressway, which is as good as any international highway, as people tend to throw caution to the wind. Sure we need to build good roads. But enforcement of traffic discipline, with fines that can really make the offender feel the pinch, is a must.
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Lot of people live on the roadside. They are used to cross roads assuming that vehicles are driven “slowly”. Now, everybody wants to drive at 120 kmph (as they do in USA or Europe) and expects people not to cross roads Also, they expect highways to have many lanes so that you press the pedal and things just move on… (want cruise contol too?)
We need to have better roads, but how important is an infrastructure for “fast driving”? And, how important is the convenience of people who live in the so many villages that the highways pass through?
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When the Mys-Blr Highway was widened, the Govt should have tried to straighten the road as much as possible. It would have been better if the trees were retained as wide dividers. They have just widened the road that was laid by the Maharaja many many decades ago. Those days, the road was probably designed with so many curves adjusting to the topography, farm lands, water flow, et al. But today, with computer aided designing and heavy equipment, these guys have done an ordinary job.
I don’t know which fool’s idea it is to plant flowering shrubs on the median of Mys-Blr highway where vehicles move at high speeds? These shrubs are hampering the visibility and the people who pluck these flowers are vulnerable, especially the kids and their dogs that accompany them. The truck-Sumo impact seems to have happened at high speed. Speeds that are probably not permitted on our roads.
Instead of tinkering with the existing roads by cutting thousands of trees, killing hundreds of people and dogs and other animals, it is better the Govt goes for laying new roads that would not pose any danger to any town, village or a forest. Roads that are well planned, for the vehicles, the people and the animals. After all, these people, their animals and the trees they have grown are part of that village, town or a forest. Damn such a road which cares less for these aspects. And nature has its way of hitting back…
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There is one important lesson that needs to be learned by the drivers of Qualiss and Sumos that they are not only risking their lives but the lives of people who are sitting in their vehicle.
There are very few stories about accident of Maruti 800 which is supposed to be the most unsafe car in the world, but we will have n number of stories where Sumos and Qualiss are involved.
Driving is an art, mear coordination between ABC (Accelerator , Brake, Clutch) does not mean a person is a driver. this is like a person can pickup brush and make drawing but that does not mean he is a painter.
People who can drive a vehicle does not mean they are drivers
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apart from the dog and the low hanging tree, the median width and type also prolly contributed to these. while they may be unavoidable in some cases, narrow medians are useless on highway type roads. They are insufficient as safety buffers between opposite traffic streams. they donot even reduce glare from opposite traffic . hard medians only make the impact harder.
once, in heavy rains, I skided off the curb lane on oil film, spun across the road and fell into the median. after a few shaken moments, drove off it. From that day I have immense appreciation for the wide clear moat type median in particular and a well designed road system in general.
Nothing needs to be invented. The basics are all well known, well tried and established results in road engineering. and most of these best practices are available for free download over the net. But how does somebody convince the KRDCL babu, and the hon. aNNa that saar, 2 lane 4 lane ok, median ishTe saake?
its not resources.
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My heart goes out for the relatives of the victims..
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I wonder what happened to the dog.
My condolences to all — including the highways department, which is dead.
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Pingback: If Murthy can be why not muthry???
Bad roads= result of reservation (reservation for engg seats, reservation for jobs, reservation even for election seats)
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The track record of Karnataka in maintenance is abysmal. The lack of geometrics, poor design and absence of warning signals have added to the problem of accidents In fact Mysore Nanjangud road has become a killer road. I have observed two peculiar things about accidents happening in Karnataka about which I have written earlier. Firstly, in majority of the cases it involves Tata Sumo and Quallis in headon collision while overtaking taking heavy toll in death and secondly in most o the cases it involves either parties going to a temple or returning from the temple.( in few cases it involves marriage party) It only means that Gods are angry with us and I don’t know why.
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I think all piligrimage parties have to start trekking .This would please the Gods more.
There is an instability issue with TATA Sumo ( I dont know about Qualis) ..maybe both vehicles should be recalled .
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ISSUE OF VEHICLE DESIGN & ACCIDENTS
As an automotive EXPERT, my opinion
1. all the people carriers(sumo & qualis) do not come with roof racks. it is installed by unskilled mechanics. drivers load heavy objects on the roof top, so that they can overload people inside the vehicles… this makes the vehicle unstable…
2. Overspeeding in overloaded condition makes the vehicle very unstable…and the inertia makes it unstoppable…with ghastly consequences…
3. With bad roads, bad vehicle design, bad driving our accident rate is much lower…thanks to 32,000crore gods of india!
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RVG…
your points are valid. drivers/owners themselves increase the risk. but such crossover accidents are natural. one can slip over anything even on a well balanced vehicle. & this road doesnot account for even that. from the road design perspective, the flaw is basic — the median is useless.
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