Kavitha Ramkumar lost her husband two years ago to a badly designed speed-breaker. One night in March of 2008, her husband, a Coast Guard personnel, on a motorcycle took a blind turn and immediately hit a speed-breaker that had no warning indicators or fluorescent markings. He suffered fatal head injuries. His case is not isolated. There are many like him.
According to A. Veeraraghavan, Professor, Transportation Engineering Division, IIT-Madras, who analysed data on all fatal accidents last year, close to 15 per cent of the 579 accident casualties in the city last year were caused due to improper road humps (speed-breakers) — all of them victims of a feature of road design that is supposed to save lives.
“I have not come across a speed-breaker in the city, which has been designed according to safety standards,” said Ms. Ramkumar. “In most interior localities which do not even have street-lights, only those who frequently use the roads will know where the speed-breakers are.”
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Speed-breakers must come up only in designated areas that have been clearly laid out in Indian Roads Congress (IRC) guidelines, said Dr. Veeraraghavan. “They cannot be provided everywhere and must not be used as a replacement for enforcement of speed norms on major roads.”
IRC guidelines explicitly discourage the use of road humps on major roads. In case road design leads to an accident, Dr. Veeraraghavan added “the engineer must be held responsible.”
According to IRC standards, the central height of a road hump must not exceed 10 centimetres, the shape must be parabolic and the width must be at least 3.5 metres. It must also be painted in a 'V' shape and illuminated by solar cat's eyes to make them visible. Signs coated with reflective paint must be placed 40 meters in advance and must mention the desired speed at which the road hump can be negotiated.
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For a speed-breaker to be legal, the city's local police must permit its construction. However, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) M. Ravi said no data on the number of speed breakers in the city exists. According to him, temporary rumblers made of rubber must be considered by the Chennai Corporation “as they can be fixed when required and removed to smoothen VIP movement.”
He added that speed-breakers must be scientifically laid by the local body and cited the ones on the IIT-Madras campus as an example.
A senior Corporation official said that most speed-breakers in the city are unauthorised.
“We need a certificate from the traffic police seeking the requirement of a road hump in a particular location. But such directions are not given to us. Due to pressure from local people who demand a speed-breaker whenever an accident takes place, they have come up everywhere. A review is required.”