Fatalities on rise, Airport Road turns motorists’ nightmare

Gaurav Kanthwal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 7

Airport Road in Mohali has turned a nightmare for road users with several accidents and fatalities being reported from the road.

On Friday, a 43-year-old woman and her daughter (13) were crushed to death under the wheels of a tipper near a blind curve near the Sohana gurdwara. It has been more than a month since the crash barriers alongside the road were broken. No signage, pelican lights and speed humps are seen on the approach to black spots on the road.

The 17.5-km stretch connecting the Mohali-Kharar road with the Zirakpur-Patiala road has over 10 black spots which snuff out lives recurrently. Trailer trucks, buses, cars and two-wheelers share this road with pedestrians.

Accident-prone areas

• Sohana gurdwara light point
• Curves near Mata Gujri gurdwara in Sector 70
• Road cut near TDI
• Light point in Phase 8B
• Quark City light point
• Sector 66-67 light point
• Sector 78-79 light point
• IISER intersection

Traffic safety awareness NGO ArriveSAFE founder Harman Sidhu said, “I have never seen or heard any work being done on the ground here. Every year, survey after survey is conducted, one overruling the other, but nothing happens on the ground.”

Sidhu said, “Mere straightening the curves from one side may reduce the number of accidents on this stretch, but the authorities are looking at each other, doing nothing.”

With the fog set to reduce visibility soon, road safety awareness groups and daily road users want the entire stretch of the road to made safe as soon as possible.

It is said that on an average, one person dies in a road accident in Mohali in every 36 hours.

I have never seen or heard any work being done on the ground here. Every year, survey after survey is conducted, one overruling the other, but nothing happens on the ground. — Harman Sidhu, founder, ArrvieSAFE

Frequent users of this road aver that there are design flaws in the curves near the Sohana gurdwara. Even the traffic police admit that the fatal curves need to be straightened with widening of the road, but the district administration and GMADA have been found wanting. A day after the accident, the SP (Traffic) visited the spot and took stock of the situation.

Frequent road users say there is a design flaw in the road here. Even if you are driving within the prescribed speed limit, the driver is taken unawares as the vehicle veers out of the lane. A road user has to change his direction four times on such a short stretch of the road.

“Locals know about this risky spot, so they slow down, but people coming from outside are caught unawares. Speeding vehicle drivers at night often become victims here. Neither the alignment nor the bank of the road (near Sector 70) is as per the technical specifications of a busy six-lane road,” said Sidhu, who had sent a representation to the technical adviser to the Punjab Chief Minister on October 9, 2017.

Mohali SDM Jagdeep Sehgal said, “We had carried out a survey along with the Mohali traffic police, the Regional Transport Authority and others in which 61 spots were identified in the district and had directed GMADA to take up the work.”