The number of road accidents in the city is showing an alarming increase and the latest in the list of victims is a 38-year-old housewife who was crushed under a KSRTC bus near Ambalamukku on Monday. With the death of Sheeja of Konchiravila, the death toll over the last one week has reached five.
Traffic officials equally blame the KSRTC drivers and the two-wheeler riders for turning the roads into a death trap. For, public transport buses were the villains in all the accidental deaths and at the receiving end were two-wheeler riders.
Several reasons have been attributed for KSRTC buses turning killers; from heavy traffic to rash driving. But the Traffic officials have a different take on the issue. “Most of the drivers of the KSRTC are empanelled and skilled ones are less in number. This explains why KSRTC is involved in numerous accidents these days,” said Traffic North Assistant Commissioner P Mohanan.
Besides this, rash driving by two-wheeler riders is compounding the worries of the law enforcers. The helmet issue has been solved after installing surveillance cameras, but what about wrong overtaking?
Police and Traffic officials said that overtaking along the left side is rampant in the city. “Thousands of riders resort to this daily. Most of them don’t realise that what they are doing is wrong. When the riders are using head phones and then overtaking along the wrong side, there is no wonder in the burgeoning accidents,” said a Traffic official.
The Traffic officials also feel that lack of parking space, along with the increase in the number of vehicles, had resulted in congestion on roads. They also point out that KSRTC is operating more schedules than a couple of years ago. But the parking space and the size of the roads have hardly increased, the officials added.