Zirakpur flyover head-on crash prone

Tribune News Service

Gaurav Kanthwal

Mohali, June 3

Zirakpur residents and road safety experts have sought installation of anti-glare median barriers on the Zirakpur flyover to avoid fatal head-on crashes during the night time, often due to speeding vehicles.

Anti-glare breaks the light beam of oncoming vehicles on the other side and median barriers prevent the vehicle involved in crashes to jump over to the other side and hit vehicles there.

How barriers help

• Anti-glare median barriers are installed at Dera Bassi and Lalru flyovers but are missing on the Zirakpur flyover.
• Anti-glare median barrier breaks the light beam of vehicles on the other side and also prevents the vehicle from jumping over to the other side and hitting vehicles.

Residents said the anti-glare median barriers were installed on the Dera Bassi flyover, but were missing at Zirakpur and Lalru flyovers, which see a heavy rush of vehicles moving at fast pace.

Low visibility at night and rainy season aggravate the chances of mishap. On the Zirakpur flyover, the traffic coming from the Shimla side also merges on the Chandigarh-Zirakpur lane.

Admn told about Missing feature

It is a safety feature and is very necessary to avoid mishaps. A vehicle driver moving in his lane can be completely taken off guard if an uncontrolled vehicle jumps over from the other side of the road to his lane. I had apprised the Mohali administration of the missing feature in May last year. —Harman Singh Sidhu, Cpresident, ArriveSAFE, a road safety NGO

ArriveSAFE president Harman Singh Sidhu said, “It is a safety feature and is very necessary to avoid mishaps. A vehicle driver moving in his lane can be completely taken off guard if an uncontrolled vehicle jumps over from the other side of the road to his lane. I had apprised the Mohali administration of the missing feature in May last year.”

Crash investigation expert Vipul Mittal said, “It depends with what brief and budget a flyover is built. These are add-on features and can be introduced later, if a need is felt for it. It has been seen that they are effective in avoiding fatal crashes.”

The Zirakpur flyover has a divider with a very low height and a dodgy street lighting system, sometimes remaining off for days.

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