Plying on narrow road, cement mixing truck damages buildings at Garkhal junction

A recklessly driven cement mixing truck rammed into several buildings at the Garkhal junction near Kasauli this morning, causing massive damage.

The driver of the cement mixing truck being taken to the site of an upcoming cantilever bridge failed to negotiate the influx of vehicles on the narrow 12-14 feet road. The truck first rammed into a building, damaging its exteriors while the steel gate of another building narrowly escaped being smashed as an alert traffic policeman rushed to the spot. The policeman directed the driver to steer clear his vehicle away from the buildings with caution even as locals protested the damage.

The driver could barely drive the bulky 7 m to 10 m long heavy vehicle having a width of about 2.5 metre could barely be driven in the narrow single lane road. Traffic policemen were on their feet as vehicles queued up on both sides on the Kasauli-Garkhal road. The cement mixing truck took nearly half an hour to negotiate the narrow stretch.

Still worse, the driver smashed two doors of a building on the Dharampur-Garkhal road where it was to deliver material at the bridge construction site. This was not an isolated incident as buildings along the road are damaged every now and then due to industrial trucks.

Traffic policemen on duty said that the engineer of the said project had been called and he would be directed to keep a trained driver to ply the vehicle that did not have a registration number and violated the provisions of the Motor Vehicle Act.

Kasauli SDM Mahinder Singh said that there was need to restrict heavy vehicles from plying at the junction during daytime. He added that though vehicles were frequently challaned, the situation had not improved.

Heavy industrial trucks from the Baddi-Barotiwala area also converge on the junction day and night though it was not an industrial corridor and was merely a narrow village road. These vehicles usually evade tax and use the arterial route through Patta Mehlog-Baand to reach the Garkhal Junction and Dharampur while avoiding the national highway.