Five persons, including three children, were killed in a ghastly road accident that took place in the early hours of Monday at Narasaraopet centre at Chilakaluripet on the Chennai-Kolkata National Highway 65. The incident took place when a sports utility vehicle rammed a stationary lorry parked on the highway. The passengers were heading back to their home at Sabbivaripalem village in Palakollu mandal in West Godavari district after having a ‘darshan’ of the presiding deity at Tirumala. Six others, who were injured, were shifted to GGH, Guntur.
The deceased were identified as Tirumala Venkateswara Rao (30), Tirumala Surya Bhavani (25), Tirumala Sonakshi (7), Tirumala Getheswar (5) and Karthik Reddy (21).
Narsaraopet Police Sub Divisional Officer D. Rama Varma rushed to the accident spot and began efforts to extricate the bodies from the sports utility vehicle.
“Preliminary investigation points out that the accident could have been caused by over speeding by the driver of the SUV. The driver of the lorry had just parked his vehicle on the left margin to have a cup of tea. We have noticed that the car was travelling with a speed of 140 km/hour,” he said.
The accident on Monday morning has yet again brought to the fore the ever increasing number of road accidents in the district. According to the Road Transport Authority, Guntur, the district recorded 71,995 road accident cases in the year 2018-19 with Visakhapatnam in a distant second position.
The Chennai-Kolkata National Highway passes through the district covering major towns. Lack of proper highway safety measures, lack of patrolling and mushrooming of illegal liquor outlets, drunken driving have been identified as major causes for road accidents.
In this case, the driver had stopped the truck on the left margin of the highway to have a cup of tea, which itself was a safety violation. NHAI mandates that all outlets should be located adjacent to the service area.
District Collector I. Samuel Anand Kumar has expressed shock at the incident and offered his condolences to the family and said that immediate steps would be taken to reduce the number of road accidents by taking safety measures.
“We suggest that the National Highway Authority of India paint the desired speed limit on the six-lane highways so that the drivers will have an idea, speed guns should be used more and their locations should keep changing, rubber strips at all vulnerable points should be set up and highway patrolling should be intensified on national highways,” he said.
