On the city roads, innocent lives are brutally snuffed out, caught between dug-up stretches and speeding buses.
One of them was that of Khadeeja Saleem, an 18-year-old girl. Her dreams and those of her family were crushed under the uncompromising wheels of a speeding private bus on April 27 evening.
Khadeeja was returning home with her father on the family’s two-wheeler after appearing for the medical entrance examination at the Medical College government school here. The bus that was trying to overtake the scooter rammed its rear. There was little space on the Medical College-Thondayad road as a large portion of the road’s side was dug up for the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)-assisted drinking water project.
The collision threw Khadeeja off the two-wheeler, dragging her under it, killing her instantly. Her father, who escaped with minor injuries, was led away from the accident spot in a state of shock, eyewitnesses said.
The same stretch had claimed the life of a 36-year-old mother in a similar accident in December 2013. Sandhya Baby, who was on her way to pick her son from school, was thrown off her two-wheeler that hit the dug-up portion of the road. She fell on the road and was run over by a private bus.
The lapses by the authorities in evening out dug-up roads in time and their inability to curb rash driving have resulted in people paying for it with their lives.
In 2013, 182 people were killed in accidents - a steady increase from the 174 in 2012. Over 270 private buses were involved in accidents in 2013.
Strong bus lobby“We have been cracking the whip on private buses without fear or favour. Intensive raids have been carried out to check the functioning of speed governors and the conduct of drivers behind the wheels. But there has been a concerted effort from the private bus lobby to stonewall us,” Rajeev Puthalath, Regional Transport Officer, said.
Motor Vehicles Department (MVD) officials said there were “agents” at the mofussil bus-stand who were adept at neutralise the speed governors installed in buses.
Officials complained of the impossibility of individually checking the speed governors of over 1,500 private buses plying in the district.
“To check the functioning of a speed governor, an officer has to physically check the underside of the carriage and drive the vehicle for a certain distance. With limited manpower, it is near impossible to conduct comprehensive checks on a daily basis,” department officials said.
They said that growing substance and alcohol dependency of drivers, who were mostly in their early 20s, added to the recklessness on the roads. The danger on the roads was doubled when both sides of the thoroughfare were dug up and left untended, leaving pedestrians and motorists with little room to manoeuvre.
The primary responsibility to even out and tar a road that was dug up lies with the Public Works Department. But delays are galore.
“Either the contractor or the government agency gives an undertaking that they will finish the work, fill up the hole and tar it. An alternative is that they will give a bank guarantee and submit the required road reformation fee to us,” P.N. Sasikumar, Executive Engineer, Roads Division, PWD, said.
He said the Thondayad stretch was opened up to lay the pipes for the JICA-assisted drinking water project.
