On Tuesday, answering a question in the legislative assembly, Home Minister G. Parameshwar said that 100 people lost their lives in 84 fatal accidents which occurred on the Bengaluru Mysuru Expressway in the last four months. Similarly, in the first six months of this year, 45 fatal accidents have occurred on the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) expressway, which has been a hotspot for accidents ever since its inauguration.
While 223 non-fatal accidents took place on the Bengaluru Mysuru Expressway injuring over 300 people, 125 accidents occurred on the KIA expressway. Another important elevated expressway in the city, which connects Silk Board junction to Electronics City, has seen a total of eight fatal accidents and 53 non-fatal accidents between January and July (up until July 12).
Why do so many accidents take place on expressways? The very purpose of expressways is to provide quicker access to motorists from point A to point B with no hurdles like traffic signals. However, the instinct to overspeed on these freeways is what is becoming fatal, experts opine. While engineering problems cannot be ignored, manual errors are said to be on a much larger scale when it comes to fatal accidents.
