A van ferrying school children overturned after it hit a divider near Deve Gowda Petrol Bunk on Friday morning. The driver and a 10-year-old boy sustained minor injuries in the accident. The 58-year-old driver Krishnamurthy has been booked for rash and negligent driving.
According to the police, Krishnamurthy has been ferrying children to school and back for over 20 years. On Friday morning, he was on his way to drop school children aged 9 to 10 years. There were 10 children in the van.
Around 9.20 a.m., when the driver approached the traffic signal at Deve Gowda Petrol Bunk, he jumped a red signal as it was getting late for school. As he jumped the signal, he was about to collide with an oncoming SUV, to which he swerved to the left and hit the divider. The van overturned, its windshield and window glasses shattered. Most of the children escaped unhurt but a 10-year-old boy suffered an abrasive injury as a shard of glass hit his arm. The driver Krishnamurthy has suffered a fracture in one of his arms.
A senior traffic police officer said that a breath analyser test of the driver showed that the driver was not drunk. The problem was that he jumped a signal and was faced by oncoming traffic from the other arm of the signal which had turned green, the officer said.
