Roads turn death traps

Hyderabad: The roads on the city’s outskirts have turned death traps as the maximum number of mishaps were reported from there. The state highways and NHs passing through the outskirts saw 100 more accidents than the number of mishaps on the city’s interior roads in the last 10 months.

The NH 44 Bengaluru road, NH 44 Nagpur road, NH 65 Vijayawada road and SH Sagar road are the most dangerous on the outskirts. Most of the accidents take place at night on these roads.

Police officials say that poor visibility near approach roads due to bushes, speeding, negligence, mechanical failure and construction debris on roads cause most accidents.

According to data compiled by Cyberabad police 428 mishaps, most of them fatal, occurred on these highways and on ORR till October this year, while the number of accidents on internal roads are comparatively less.

Among the 33 most accident prone areas in Cyberabad commissionerate limits, 20 are on highways and two on ORR. The city police data said that around 80% of the accidents took place in darkness.

On NH 44 Nagpur road 68 accidents occurred till October. “The main problem is the bushes by the side of the highway’s approach roads. The drivers on both the highway and approach roads cannot see each other. We wrote to NHAI several times to remove the bushes, but we got no response,” said Alwal traffic police inspector P. Sridhar.

Speeding vehicles, pedestrians crossing roads and bikers taking U turns at unauthorised places are the main reasons for accidents on NH 65 Vijayawada road, where 75 accidents occurred till October.

"Bikers and pedestrians jump dividers and try to cross the road at unauthorised places. The road is so wide that the chances of speeding vehicles mowing them down are very high.

The same road is a major gateway to Andhra Pradesh and two major districts of Telangana. So several vehicles move very fast when there is no traffic," said LB Nagar traffic police inspector P. Devender.