The death of a 34-year-old man on Tuesday after his two-wheeler hit an unmarked speed breaker at Chitlapakkam, has brought into sharp focus on the city’s speed breakers.
A native of Salem, C. Govindaraju and his two children were travellling on the motorcycle on Second Main Road at Sarvamangala Nagar in the Tambaram Corporation. As the speed breaker was not marked, he did not slow down. The vehicle went over the speed breaker and hit an electric pole, and Govindaraj and the children were thrown off the vehicle. Govindaraj died on the spot. His sons, Karuppusamy, 14, and Sridharan, 8, suffered minor injuries, police said.
This was the latest in a series of such accidents involving speed breakers in the city and suburbs that have not been painted with white reflective stripes to serve as a caution to motorists.
“My 77-year-old father hit a speed breaker near Veerapandiya Kattabomman Street late on December 24 last year and was injured,” says T.M. Raghuraman, 51, a resident of Chitlapakkam for 32 years.
“After complaints were made with Tambaram Police, only that particular speed breaker was painted. But there are many more in our area. Earlier, there was only one speed breaker at the T-junction. Now, there is one at every 500 metres. I cross at least seven speed breakers daily on this street. None of them complies with the Indian Road Congress [IRC] regulations,” he alleged.
A senior official of the Tambaram Corporation said the councillor of the ward had constructed the speed breaker four days ago at Sarvamangala Nagar, Second Main road, Chitlapakkam, which was removed on Wednesday. Five other speed breakers laid by the local representatives were also removed the same day, the official added.
A committee, headed by Joint Commissioner (South) of Greater Chennai City Traffic Police, to check “uneven, non-standardised and unnecessary” speed breakers in the city was formed. A meeting of the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC), Metropolitan Transport Corporation, Greater Chennai City Traffic Police, Highways Department, and Chennai Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority has been planned to address the issue, said a traffic police officer.
Only after getting clearance from the committee, speed breakers can be laid. If it is found to be deviating from the norms, it will be removed, the official said.
A senior official with the GCC said speed breakers were laid after getting a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Greater Chennai City Traffic Police, and the existing spread breakers are being rectified as per Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH). “No specific audit or evaluation of the existing speed breakers are recently done by the GCC.” the official said.
“Speed breakers should be painted with alternate black and white bands to give additional visual warning. For better night visibility, it is desirable that the markings are in luminous paint/luminous strips. Embedded cat-eyes can also be used to enhance night visibility,” the guidelines of the Indian Road Congress state. And, caution boards should be installed 40 metres ahead of the speed breakers.
Speeding issues
Suresh, an auto-rickshaw driver in T. Nagar, said that humps were added in accident-prone areas, such as near a private school and the Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha on Melony Road in Parthasarathi Puram, near Madras Shri Kashi Math in West Mambalam, and on Chevalier Shivaji Ganesan Road in T. Nagar. “Most of these speed breakers are not painted and I have rammed my vehicle on these at night. I have never seen caution boards ahead of speed breakers in the city,” he said.
Sumana Narayanan, Senior Researcher, Citizen Consumer and Civic Action Group (CAG) told The Hindu that “The plastic speed breakers can be ordered though e-commerce websites by anyone and installed illegally anywhere. There are no warning signs, and some humps cause vehicles to have hard landings. The police have to constantly be monitoring, but they are stressed due to lack of manpower.”
“In India, we don’t have the capacity to do a proper analysis of the speed breaker issue and must look into solutions apart from installing this infrastructure. The problem slips through the cracks because there is no dedicated system to monitor it. The Greater Chennai Corporation, the Highways Department and Public Works Department must collaborate to check this,” Ms. Narayanan added.
Apart from adding pedestrian-friendly options like reducing the carriage width and erecting traffic islands, she said a behavioural change is also needed among motorists on driving under the speed limit.
P. Viswanathan, 66, a resident of Chitlapakkam, said that, while speed humps do facilitate in controlling speed limits, they must be placed at vantage points, besides following IRC norms, especially in avenue or colony roads and school zones. “The speed breaker in our area was removed [after the accident]. Instead, it should have been modified as per IRC rules,” he said.
