“Each time I get into my car, I pray that I should not trail behind a goods vehicle on a flyover. With dividers placed on most flyovers, it becomes difficult to avoid a slow-moving vehicles,” says V. Satyanarayana Reddy, a marketing executive from Tarnaka.
Mr. Reddy commutes to his office in Banjara Hills and visits different parts of the city as part of his job and claims that nothing delays his commute more than a heavy vehicle labouring on a flyover.
“Driving behind a goods trolley or a heavy vehicle on a flyover is like driving with a sword dangling on my head. First, we are forced to slow down to a crawl as the heavily laden vehicle struggles against gravity, and then there is always a threat of the vehicle breaking down due to the strain,” he says, wondering as to why such vehicles are allowed on flyovers in the first place.
Bane for traffic police
Goods carriages and heavy vehicles on main roads create problems not just for other motorists but also prove to be a bane for traffic police. While each time a vehicle breaks down, it takes more than 45 minutes to clear it from the road and restore traffic, and the time doubles when a vehicle breaks down on a flyover during peak hours.
Senior police officers do acknowledge the delays and problems these heavy vehicles cause, particularly on flyovers.
“There should be a restriction on heavy vehicles plying on flyovers while exempting road overbridges built over railway lines,” maintains a police officer.
“City roads are already choc-a-bloc and have many bottlenecks. Flyovers are built mainly to avoid such bottlenecks and to increase the average traffic speed. But the present practice of allowing heavy vehicles on flyovers defeats the very purpose of these facilities,” he points out.
Avoiding a flyover could be a better option even for goods carriages and heavy vehicles as they will not be forced to undergo the strain of climbing up the flyover, he says.
