Jan saw 12 deaths in mishaps involving stationary trucks on highways

 

 

 

Case I - A Bolero Jeep crashed into a stationary truck near Gondkhairi and three people were killed on the spot in the mishap.

 

Case II - Car rammed into a stationary truck on Wardha-Pulgaon road and three persons were killed, including a Police Sub-Inspector.

 

Case III - Two bike-borne youths died after their motorcycle collided with a stationary tractor trolley near Parseoni. In the above three cases, one thing is common and that is -- stationary position of the trucks. The trucks or tractor were parked on the roadside in pitch darkness without sign of indicators. As a result, the driver of vehicle coming behind failed to notice stationary position of the truck till it gets too late.

 

And the result, loss of innocent lives for no fault of theirs. A total of four such accidents were reported in January this year under the jurisdictions of Nagpur Highway police and about dozen persons have lost their lives. The drivers of heavy vehicles are negligent about the safety of other vehicles and hardly care for other road users when they abandon their truck on main carriageway. As per rules, in case of breakdown, a stationary vehicle on highway has to put on blinker so that anyone can sight the same from long distance. However in all the four cases, it is crystal clear that blinkers were off at time of incident. Since four-wheelers ply at high speed on the highways, and particularly during night time the visibility is quite low, it takes just a fraction of second for occurrence of the mishaps.

 

In such cases, the police officers observed that the vehicle which crash into the truck gets badly mangled and rescuing the injured persons from the vehicle become a difficult task for the police personnel without cutters. Deputy Superintendent of Police, Highway Safety Police, Sanjay Pande, informed ‘The Hitavada’ that many a times, the truckers park their vehicle on the road near Dhabas. "We have launched a drive to aware the Dhaba owners about consequences of the vehicles negligently parked on the road,” he said.

 

The trucks must switch on indicators while parking the truck by roadside, appealed DySP Pande and warned of stern action against drivers of such negligently parked vehicles on highways. He also appealed people to be careful while driving during night time and stick to prescribed speed limits as one can veer around stationary vehicles in tight situations.