BENGALURU: The driver and conductor of a Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) super deluxe bus were killed while 24 passengers sustained serious injuries after the bus overturned on the Bengaluru-Mysuru Expressway after hitting a signboard at Averegere near Bidadi at 6.30 am on Saturday.
The bus was on its way to Bengaluru from Calicut in Kerala. According to preliminary reports, the driver reportedly lost control of the bus owing to over-speeding and crashed into the signboard. The bus overturned due to the impact and was dragged for about 50 metres.
The deceased are driver Midhilesh, from Vellayil in Kozhikode and conductor NM Arun Kumar from Kovoor. The bodies were shifted to the mortuary of the Rajarajeswari Hospital on the Mysuru Road. The injured were shifted to two private hospitals in the vicinity. The condition of two passengers identified as Sanub and Mohammed Rashid is said to be critical. There were nearly 35 passengers in the bus. Among them seven of them had got down at Mysuru.
“The bus is said to have left Calicut almost one-and-a-half hours late and the driver, in an attempt to make up for the delay, is said to have been over-speeding. The bus has been completely damaged in the incident. Traffic was also affected for some time till police cleared the mangled remains of the bus from the accident spot,” said the police. The Bidadi police of the Bengaluru South district police have registered a case.
HUMAN ERROR WAS CAUSE OF ACCIDENT: TRANSPORT MIN
KERALA: Kerala Transport Minister CP John dismissed mechanical failure as the cause of the crash. “Human error was the cause of the accident,” he said. Dismissing claims of driver exhaustion, Kozhikode KSRTC depot assistant transport officer Prashobh said, “There was no situation where rest was denied. The driver had around 16 hours of rest. Further details will be clear upon detailed investigation,” he said, citing eyewitness reports of heavy rain and high vehicle speed at the time of the crash.
