Beware of flyover up ahead!

Flyovers on city roads are supposed to facilitate smooth flow of traffic. Instead, they are turning into road to hell for commuters. Reportedly, at least one person is dying and three are being injured every week in accidents due to narrow entrances of flyovers and unplanned alignment of dividers on them.Once the cement barricades are put in place on the flyovers, there is none to look for their regular maintenance. With many flyovers designed with narrow entrances and haywire alignment of dividers, they are only leading to frequent traffic jams and claiming lives of unsuspecting motorists.Of the five flyovers on the Secunderabad - Nagarjuna circle stretch, the ones located near the Begumpet airport and the St Ann’s flyover are posing threat to commuters. Recently, two BTech students -- Chaitanya Prasad (21), resident of Moulali and Sandeep (21), resident of ECIL died on the spot at the Paradise flyover, after their bike rammed a parked vehicle.Police said the mishap occurred due to narrow entrance of the flyover.In another case, two persons were injured when a Scorpio in which three were travelling, rammed the 30 feet long divider, protruding towards the main road. The driver had reportedly got confused to find out the way in the dark.GHMC officials have not made the problems of motorists any easier. They have forgotten to paint the black and white colours for dividers making them completely impossible to be noticed by motorists at night. At the Narayanaguda flyover for instance, dividers are completely coloured in black posing a genuine threat to vehicle riders.The Begumpet flyover has narrow entrances added to a protruding 20 feet long divider being a cause for dangers to motorists. In most other flyovers, dividers have been set up with cement barricades thrown in a haphazard way, posing problems for heavy vehicle movement.Traffic police have already written a letter to the GHMC for taking up regular maintenance of dividers but to no avail. CV Anand, additional commissioner of police (Traffic) said they were in the process of identifying various flyovers which has narrow entrances and build permanent dividers with iron and steel rods.“We have identified the Masab Tank flyover at first as an accident- prone place. Initially, we will construct a divider throughout the whole flyover under a pilot project. We also plan to fix radium stickers and set up danger lights to create awareness on slow and safe riding on flyovers,” Anand said.

By Mouli Mareedu,

moulimareedu@gmail.com