A glance at the comments posted on the Facebook of Madurai City Traffic Police reveals that many motorists are befuddled by the different shapes and sizes of medians on the city roads. Instead of regulating vehicular movement, they were posing a major threat to the road users.
For instance, the KK Nagar Main Road has a cement structure that serves as a median from the Arch to Jawahar Hospital, while Ambedkar Salai and a few other roads have removable red colour pipes with reflective stickers as medians.
Stretches on Arapalayam, Panagal Salai and in parts of Teppakulam and T.B. Road have square cement blocks as medians.
Along the Madurai-Tirumangalm stretch of the NH-7, the median, though a cement structure has no reflectors and no proper street lights. With visibility being poor, there have been instances of truck drivers, who are using the road for the first time, ramming into the median.
Apart from this, small gaps in the median, especially the one along the KK Nagar Main Road results in freak accidents daily, according to a comment on the Facebook. Motorists want the police to close the gaps to prevent such accidents. A traffic police officer said that they were actively considering the plea.
Use of medians
According to a senior officer, many broad roads, which did not have medians earlier, had to be provided with one as the number of vehicles had multiplied in the last five years.
In a bid to prevent head-on collisions, the police have installed such dividers. They also feel that medians would check the tendency to overtake a vehicle in a hurry, which results in fatal accidents.
An officer, in-charge of city traffic planning, said that they were examining the possibility of introducing uniform medians on broad roads so that it would not confuse road users.
Commissioner of Police Sanjay Mathur recently told this correspondent that public cooperation and self-discipline was essential for the city to become accident free.
