Three persons were killed and one was injured in a road accident involving two goods carriers on Chennai-Bangalore National Highway at Vedal on Tuesday night.
According to police, the accident took place around half-past-midnight after a light commercial vehicle driven by Babu (25) of Madhanahalli, Kolar District, Karnataka, hit another goods carrier proceeding in the same direction.
Krishnan (50) of Madhanahalli, who accompanied Babu to Chennai, and two other unidentified men, died on the spot. Babu was rushed to the Government District Headquarters Hospital.
However, the driver of the goods carrier, which the light commercial vehicle hit, drove the vehicle away, police said.
This is the second accident on Chennai-Bangalore National Highway in the last two days. Earlier on Monday morning, a motorcyclist was fatally knocked down in a multiple collision that took place at Rajakulam.
Enquiries reveal that the number of deaths due to road accidents that took place in Kancheepuram police district comprising major arterial roads such as Chennai-Bangalore National Highway, Grand Southern Trunk Road, East Coast Road and other major roads, in 2010 had gone up by 29. The number of fatal accidents increased to 766 in 2010 from 747 in 2009, sources said.
Incidents of road accidents continue to be recorded on the 60-km stretch of the National Highway – beginning from Papankuzhi near Chembarambakkam in the east to Thamal at the Vellore district border on the west – despite steps initiated by the police to reduce the number of accidents.
A majority of accidents involving two-wheelers took place when motorcyclists rode on the wrong lane on the carriageway or crossed the highway at non-designated points by climbing over the centre median, police said.
Efforts to curb this practice by erecting iron barricades or brick walls on the centre median at select points proved futile as the motorcyclists found new shortcuts adjacent to the old ones, the police added.
Vehicular traffic along these stretches has been rising steadily. Almost all industrial units functioning along this stretch have engaged private buses to ferry their employees to and from their establishments from various places in Kancheepuram and as well as nearby Tiruvallur district, while educational institutions have their own vehicles to bring students from various places in Kancheepuram district, Tiruvallur district and Chennai.
