Yeshwanthpur Flyover

flyover

BBMP

The turning at the flyover is too sharp. Speeding vehicles often lose control over the wheels while taking a turn here –A traffic police officer

Bangalore

Sunday morning horror in Yeshwanthpur

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The police officials have been instructed to find a solution to the flyover turning and to come up with necessary precautions along with BBMP –A senior officer

Bends and curves makeone of the most accident-prone in the cityWhen you are driving on the Yeshwanthpur(from IISc side), The flyovers snakes towards the left side and chances are that you may lose control of your vehicle. Probably, this is the reason why this flyover is one of the most accident-prone flyovers in the city. Experts say that the design of the flyovers which are generally linear in nature isn’t the case in Yeshwanthpur junction. As this flyover bends towards left, motorists tend to lose control. Finally, several accidents later, the police are holding a meeting withofficials tomorrow to fix the flyover. But, the big question is-can it be rectified at all?Background explaining the construction of Yeshwanthpur Flyover, 2008.Long ago, the road from IISc would directly go towards the Tumkur road. However, with Yeshwanthpur becoming a railway station, the road was bent left wards to make a detour to the Yeshwanthpur Railway Station, to reach Tumkur Road. As the traffic increased, the Yeshwanthpur Junction congested.Added to this, the BMTC buses had to take a detour (via Sandal soap factory) to reach the Yeshwanthpur bus stand which was just opposite of the junction. Hence, the BBMP and BMTC took up construction of two flyovers. While the BBMP constructed a curved flyover along the Yeshwanthpur-Tumkur road, BMTC built a parallel flyover to help the BMTC buses cross to the bus stand and the depot (Even BMTC flyover is a pedestrian’s nightmare as many lives have been lost). Now, this curved flyover has been the reason for multiple accidents.Speaking toMirror, a traffic police officer admitted, “The turning at the flyover is too sharp. Speeding vehicles often lose control over the wheels while taking a turn here. The higher officials have asked us to visit the spot along with the engineer and submit the report to the BBMP on Monday to come up with the solution to prevent such accidents in the future”. The police have tried every trick; from laying humps (before the start of the flyover) to displaying sign boards but the night traffic on this flyover is a challenging one. On October 22, 2018, a container vehicle over turned on the flyover and an SUV passing by the truck had a mere escape.While a BBMP Official who executed the Yeshwanthpur flyover project said, “The flyover was made in a bid to ease traffic congestions. Constructing a flyover there was very important. It was a challenge making the flyover as it was designed to be at 90 degrees, but we did it. According to the design, the speed limit is only 30km per hour. Over speeding is not an option here. To deter over speeding, we have constructed a speed breaker just before the flyover begins.”Why wasn’t the flyover made in a linear fashion? “A straight flyover would cross the Yeshwanthpur Railway station and acquiring that land wouldn’t be possible. So, we chose this way,” said BBMP official.“The flyover has no proper visibility. When one travels from the CV Raman road, we cannot see how the flyover turns. Visibility is veryimportant for a commuter to judge the speed one has to take. The road edges should be marked so drivers know where the road is leading at night. The flyover should also be secured with guard rails, so if a vegicle loses control, it wouldn’t topple off, it will act like a safety barrier. And most importantly, a road safety audit should be carried out by a certified road auditor,” said Ashish Verma, Associate Professor of transport System Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science.***********Two men were killed after a truck carrying a load of fresh mushrooms lost its control while making a turn and falling off the Yeshwanthpur flyover on Sunday morning.The deceased have been identified as Srinivasa Rao, 23 and KG Kenchegowda, 38, both hailing from Hosur and resided in the city. Both took turns to drive the truck. They were returning from Pune, when the incident took place.According to the police, Kenchegowda was driving the truck and around 5:45 am, the truck which was on the Yeshwanthpur flyover, lost its control over the wheels while taking a sharp turn and fell off the flyover. The co driver, Srinivasa Rao who was sitting next to the driver, died on spot while Kenchegowda was taken to a hospital, where succumbed to his injuries in the evening. The police have shifted the bodies to MS Ramaiah hospital for postmortem.While the police were busy shifting the truck and clearing the traffic, the public were found pushing each other to grab the fresh mushroom from the truck.A senior officer said that the Kenchegowda was driving the vehicle in rash and negligent manner and lost the control while taking a sharp turn on the flyover. He said that the police officials have been instructed to find a solution to the flyover turning and to come up with necessary precautions along with BBMP, to prevent such incidents in future.In a similar incident in Nov 2018, a mini truck carrying poultry chickens fell off the flyover from the same spot but luckily all three people including the driver escaped with injuries.