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HCBS Corridor Driver's Nightmare:
Drinking & Driving Crash Kills 2
September 16, 2007
New Delhi: Once again, drinking and driving has claimed two young
lives. The scene of the accident early on Saturday morning - 1:45
am - involving a Maruti Esteem and an overloaded truck was the under-construction
high-capacity bus corridor
which has become a major traffic hazard.
Particularly at night, when people tend to drive a bit fast, the narrow
lanes illuminated with floodlights loom up suddenly in the distance,
blinding the driver. The five young men returning from a birthday
party in Nizamuddin and heading for Khirki Extension had consumed
alcohol, according to the police, but how much the construction work
contributed to the tragedy must be looked into seriously.
The car (DL 3CF 8654) jumped the central verge and collided head-on
with a truck coming from the opposite direction on JB Tito Marg, near
the Delhi Jal Board (DJB)
office at Sadiq Nagar.
According to the police, the car’s driver was in the bus lane
(not yet operational and open to all traffic) when he lost control
and the vehicle crossed the divider. It landed in front of a truck
(RJ 32G 1927) in the bus lane on the other side. The truck rammed
into it.
Two youths - Amit Raghav (35) and Sarabjeet Singh alias Monu
(28) - who were seated in front - died on the spot while
three in the rear were injured. They have been identified as Avinash
Bhargava, Bhim and Gaurav. The car, fitted with an unauthorised CNG
kit, reportedly belonged to Bhim while Sarabjeet was driving. After
the accident, three other friends of the youths, who were reportedly
following them, beat up the driver and cleaner of the truck.
"Avinash has fractured his left arm and can’t breathe
properly due to injuries in his ribs. He, along with seven others,
had gone for a friend’s party but we don’t know much else
as we got to know of the accident from the police. He lived by himself
in Khirki Extension and is working with CII,’’ said Nitin
Bhargava, his brother.
Preliminary investigations by the police have revealed that the youths
were under the influence of alcohol while the truck driver was not
drunk. The cops say an accident like this was waiting to happen on
the stretch, which has become very dangerous since the construction
of the HCBS corridor
is being executed in a haphazard manner. "There are few streetlights
and the floodlights used for construction just blind drivers. Moreover,
the dividers separating the bus lane and the MV lanes spring up right
out of nowhere and their size is very small. Had there been a normal-sized
divider on the road, the car wouldn’t have been able to jump
it as the speed was not that fast,’’ said a police official.
Eyewitnesses, including a Sikh family which stays in the government
flats near the spot, told the police that the left lane - going
towards Moolchand Hospital - had been closed as some work was
being executed. This is why the truck was in the extreme right lane.
The truck was overloaded too. "It was carrying over 40
tonnes of marble, an excess load of about 200%. The intensity of the
accident was much more due to this. Had the load been legal, it would
have probably not turned fatal. But the police haven’t even
booked the driver for overloading,’’ said SP Singh, coordinator
of Indian Federation of Transportation Research and Training (IFTRT),
after he surveyed the spot on Saturday. The truck was coming from
Kota, Rajasthan, and was headed for Mansarover Garden in west Delhi.
Singh added that as per the law, there have to be two drivers in any
truck driving on a national permit so that they can remain alert while
driving. But here, there was just one.
The occupants of the car were all residents of Malviya Nagar and had
gone together for the party. While Amit was an engineer working for
a Gurgaon-based computer firm, Sarabjeet worked as a fitness instructer
in a Gurgaon hotel.
He was married and has a sixyear-old son.
A case of causing death by rash and negligent driving has been registered
at the Defence Colony police station. The truck driver, Raghubir,
has been detained by the police. "No one has been arrested so far
since we are waiting for the medical examination and postmortem reports
to ascertain whether the truck driver was at fault at all.’’
Singh, however, raised questions about why the police hadn’t
initiated action against the truck driver for overloading or against
the government for negligence in carrying out construction of the
high capacity bus corridor.
Source: The Times Of India
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