On Tuesday, answering a question in the legislative assembly, Home Minister G. Parameshwar said that 100 people lost their lives in 84 fatal accidents which occurred on the Bengaluru Mysuru Expressway in the last four months. Similarly, in the first six months of this year, 45 fatal accidents have occurred on the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) expressway, which has been a hotspot for accidents ever since its inauguration.
While 223 non-fatal accidents took place on the Bengaluru Mysuru Expressway injuring over 300 people, 125 accidents occurred on the KIA expressway. Another important elevated expressway in the city, which connects Silk Board junction to Electronics City, has seen a total of eight fatal accidents and 53 non-fatal accidents between January and July (up until July 12).
Why do so many accidents take place on expressways? The very purpose of expressways is to provide quicker access to motorists from point A to point B with no hurdles like traffic signals. However, the instinct to overspeed on these freeways is what is becoming fatal, experts opine. While engineering problems cannot be ignored, manual errors are said to be on a much larger scale when it comes to fatal accidents.
“Around 80 – 90% of accidents in Karnataka occur due to overspeeding of vehicles. That and the lack of lane discipline are the major causes of accidents. On expressways too, overspeeding is the main problem. There are some engineering defects, and the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) is due to do a lot of things, but we cannot wait. We have taken it up as a challenge to implement strong enforcement and creation of awareness to reduce fatalities as well as injuries on these corridors,” said Alok Kumar, Additional Director General of Police, Traffic & Road Safety, Karnataka
Intelligent Traffic Management System
Mr Kumar also said that he has issued an order to the respective traffic police officials that enforcement should be correlational to the offences which are being repeated on the expressways. “If there are overspeeding cases, then they would conduct overspeeding drives and if there are more drunken driving cases, then a special drive would be conducted against it,” he explained.
Further, Joint Commissioner (Traffic), Bengaluru, M. N. Anucheth said that there is a proposal from the Bengaluru Traffic Police (BTP) to employ Intelligent Traffic Management System (ITMS) to be employed on both KIA as well as Electronics City expressways to detect seven types of violations including over speeding, driving without seat belt, riding without helmet and driving while talking on mobile phone. He also said that driver feedback boards would be put up on the expressways to let the drivers know that they are over speeding, along with enforcement by the police officials.
Accidents on expressways in the year 2023
| Expressway | Fatal accidents | Non-fatal accidents | Total accidents |
| Bengaluru Mysuru expressway (between March-June) | 84 | 223 | 308 |
| KIA expressway | 45 | 125 | 170 |
| Electronics City expressway | 8 | 53 | 61 |
Traffic police, NHAI conflict
It should also be noted that there has been some tussle between the police and NHAI officials when it comes to expressways. The BTP has often mentioned that many measures suggested by them to reduce accidents, especially on the KIA expressway, have not been implemented. In 2022, the BTP submitted a 200-page report to the NHAI about infrastructural changes and speed regulation required by the expressways in the city.
A senior official in the BTP said that no results have come from submitting the report to NHAI. “The problem with any expressway is that it comes under NHAI, and they do not respond to our suggestions. Even something as simple as erecting lights does not happen from their side. It is much easier for us to coordinate with the Traffic Engineering Cell of the BBMP and get things done,” they said.
Engineering defects
On the other hand, experts think that while there are a few engineering defects, lack of enforcement and poor road worthiness of vehicles are the main reasons for accidents on the expressway. “Most of these accidents are happening as vehicles lose control or tyres burst. There is a lack of mechanical sturdiness when it comes to vehicles in our country. The safety standards are also not high enough. Along with this, the police should be more stringent and robust when it comes to enforcement to avoid accidents and loss of lives,” said Ashish Verma, convener, IISc Sustainable Transportation Lab
The Home Minister also mentioned in the assembly that the department would discuss the issues on the Bengaluru Mysuru expressway with the NHAI.
