Langar Houz, 9 a.m vehicles are parked on the road as flower sellers haggle as a college bus zips past. Autorickshaws do circles on the road outside the police station. There is no space for even walking. Cross the Bapu Ghat and the road seems to get better and wider.
A little ahead, buffaloes crisscross the road shooed by cowherds. You might as well be in the 1970s Hyderabad of two-lane roads. Then, the road forks into a right that goes to Rajiv Gandhi International Airport and a host of other destinations and the left that takes you to Gandipet. The two-lane road turns into a swank six-lane road that is like a breath of fresh air. A little ahead, nature takes your breath away with the sheet of blue water of Himayatsagar on one side and stunning rock formations on the other. The road asks you to race, to step on the gas, to hit metal to the floor and to burn rubber. The long, wide, smooth as mellow cheese black road without a soul in sight invites you to race. And Hyderabadis are racing.
On Sunday afternoon, one man was racing his Honda CB1000R the 6-gear, liquid cooled engine monster that could kick up a whopping 125 Bhp (Maruti 800 engine produces 37 Bhp), when at an unmarked intersection a muddy Mahindra vehicle trundled and turned onto the 6-lane expressway. Now the unrecognisable smashed up Honda CB1000r is at the Rajendra Nagar PS. The driver is no more.
Only the skid marks and oil and blood stains covered with sand are there. On Monday, a young man from Bihar stood at the accident spot near the Dargah waving a red flag on a stick to tell onrushing driver about the intersection.
This is not a one-off incident. As the city's roads have become broader, thrill seekers don't have to hit a highway or an expressway. They can do it on the city roads.
According to police sources, in the last two years, over 200 two-wheeler drivers have died due to skidding of vehicle (read, uncontrollable speeding). If the Honda CB1000R is a cheaper version of the original thriller CB1000RR, then a host of new bikes are ready to hit the streets in Hyderabad including the Harley Davidson.
Without driver awareness, sparse regulation, assorted traffic (in 2007, there were 2337 vehicles per km in Hyderabad) and no control on exit or entrance on high-speed roads in densely populated area this is an invitation for trouble.
The speed limit on ORR is a laughable 40 kmph and at a few stretches 60 kmph, while the cars travel only above 100 kmph and 100-cc bike drivers touch 80 and 90 kmph and jump across lanes as if the road is a game of hop-scotch. On vast stretches of the road, work is in progress and sand, soil and rocks are all over the road. Traffic cops are difficult to spot.
“There are multiple factors involved in the rise of road accidents, but 80 per cent are due to vehicles and drivers. Only 20 per cent are due to engineering defects on the roads,” says Rajgopal Reddy of AP Road Development Corporation.
“A new empowered committee on road safety has been constituted which is looking into all aspects of road safety. And it will be able to pin the blame for the rise in road accidents and suggest methods to solve this tangled mess,” says Rajgopal. But till the accidents cease, it will be small solace for parents carrying, what Anton Chekov calls, the heaviest burden.
