HYDERABAD: It is not just the Biodiversity flyover that makes one feel unsafe, people also find it difficult to navigate their vehicles at its sharp curves on several other flyovers in the city as well.
Especially when the stretch splits into a ‘T’ junction and offers the same level of discomfort to the commuters, just as much when they move through its curved designs, so much so that several accidents have occurred on it.
Though no flyover in the city officially has any ‘black spot’, experts opine that a thorough safety audit is urgently required in all flyovers that have curves and turns.
A case in point for this is the deaths occurring on the new flyover at West Zone- JNTU.
It is learnt that this flyover, in eight months since its inauguration in April 2019 has already witnessed five to six deaths happen on it as the flyover has no speed calming measure.
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Other relatively newer flyovers at Nallagandla and IKEA have raised similar fears among traffic cops. “The JNTU flyover has seen at least six deaths since its inauguration. Though it is a relatively straight flyover, many fatal accidents have been occurring on it for some reasons. Similarly, several accidents have occurred on the flyover at Nallagandla as well as it has a ‘T shape intersection’, leaving commuters confused on how to go ahead,” noted an official on condition of anonymity.
While speaking to Express, another official said that though the IKEA flyover has not caused any fatalities, it has no signages to modify commuter behaviour and neither does it have ‘speed calming’ measures which making it hard to manage.
Meanwhile, commuters claimed that it is difficult to navigate vehicles on the flyovers in the central zone — Punjagutta-Nagarjuna circle, PVNR, Khairatabad, and Nalgonda X roads — especially around the turns and curves which further leads to accident.
Similar apprehensions have been made about the PVNR, which passes with several curves and turns across its 11.6 km stretch in the city, as well.
The flyover which comes under three traffic police limits — Asif Nagar, Tolichowki and Rajendarnagar — has two major curves at Mehdipatnam junction and National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB).
“The flyover has routinely seen accidents caused due to speeding, but nothing very major. The main issue is that there are no CCTV cameras except at the starting and the ending points, making traffic rule enforcement hard. The common reasons why accidents happen on this overpass are either because speeding vehicles change lanes or when they fail to control the curves and dash into the median,” said an official.
The Punjagutta flyover also gets sharp when it split into the Banjara Hills Road No. 2, giving the commuters a mental push to increase the speed. Commenting on this, experts from JNTU said that the flyover lack routine audits on planning, execution and maintenance.
“We need several safety measures on the flyovers, like glare recovery tags to block the headlight from the opposite sides using median plantation,” said Dr KM Lakshmana Rao, department of civil engineering.