The recent death of a young two-wheeler rider at the dangerous curve at Elamkulam on S.A. Road where a dozen persons died in two-wheeler accidents in 2021 and 2022 has once again set alarm bells ringing.
The motorbike rider was reportedly taking a test drive along the corridor during day time, when he lost control of the vehicle and rammed into a metro rail pillar on the curve.
Barring pasting of reflectors and erection of a pair of warning boards, the agencies concerned did little to avert accidents at the curve, where there were level differences on the fast track of the road. The pile caps of metro pillars remained at constant level, while the rest of the road has been gradually sinking. Both the Kochi Corporation and the Public Works department (PWD) expressed funds crunch as the reason for not solving the problem beneath much of the metro viaduct on Banerjee Road, M.G. Road and S.A. Road. They termed slushy soil as the reason for the surface of the roads sinking.
The dangerous curve was prominently mentioned by the National Transportation Planning and Research Centre (NATPAC) in 2022, in a revised list of accident-prone black spots in Ernakulam district that was submitted to the Kerala Road Safety Authority (KRSA). But road-owning agencies failed to initiate accident mitigation measures recommended in most of the black spots, despite the KRSA sanctioning funds, said informed sources.
Various stakeholders, including NATPAC, Motor Vehicles’ department (MVD) and the traffic police, had flagged the steep curve, undulations in the vicinity of metro-rail pillars, inadequate road gradient, and varying width of the carriageway at Elamkulam owing to a couple of buildings protruding into the road, as the main reasons for accidents.
Antony Painuthara, the councillor representing Elamkulam in Kochi Corporation, expressed hope that the Kochi Corporation would implement the safety measures recommended by NATPAC, such as installing cats-eye reflectors, road studs and warning boards at frequent intervals to forewarn motorists. “Speed breakers too must be installed, to slow down vehicles. On its part, Kochi Metro Rail Limited [KMRL] must desist from placing advertisement boards that distracted motorists at such curves, while the District Road Safety Authority must coordinate all this,” he said.
Sources in the Kochi Corporation said the civic agency was not in a position to raise the sunk surface of the dangerous and undulated curve, due to funds paucity. The traffic police has submitted a letter to the Corporation, seeking repainting of rumble strips that got erased over time at the curve and another letter to a hotel to not park vehicles anywhere near the curve.
“We will also re-install speed breakers that used to be placed at the curve in between metro-rail pillars bearing number 819 to 826, when accidents peaked in 2021-22,” said a traffic police official.
