Cement barricades: Sleeping killers' haunt drivers

Hyderabad: They have been dubbed ‘sleeping killers’ and they have claimed 10 lives and left several injured in the past few months. They are the broken medians and cement barricades dividing the roads which are laid in such a haphazard manner that what has been set up for safety are now death traps. Vehicles moving at high speeds often crash into these dividers because they tend to surprise motorists. These temporary cement blocks being used to control the flow of traffic pose a grave danger as they are never put back in place after getting dislodged and displaced being hit by a vehicle. There are no reflectors on most dividers in the city.

Ahsan Pasha, founder of Road Safety, an independent organisation, says, “Earlier, the city had lit bollards on central reservations. But now, central reservations have become a must to control the unruly traffic. The only problem is that GHMC is not paying attention to the lighting or reflectors at the ends to make them visible. Another factor is the inadequate lighting of the roads. Invariably, when there is oncoming traffic with headlights on, one’s vision is partially restricted and one doesn’t notice something lying in one’s way, especially if you are new to the area. You end up damaging your vehicle and hurting yourself and others in the vicinity. Even the permanent central reservations do not have adequate lighting or reflectors and one notices that so many of these are damaged, obviously due to vehicles ramming into them.