Will make Bengaluru-Mysuru highway safe for motorists: Alok Kumar

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Lauding the efforts of policemen regulating speed of vehicles plying on the Bengaluru-Mysuru highway, Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) for Traffic and Road Safety Alok Kumar said the number of deaths on the new road dropped to single digits in July.

In a tweet, the ADGP said, "Largely due to proactive efforts by the police, the no (number) of deaths due to crashes on Bengaluru-Mysore Highway came down to 8 during July 23. May – 29 deaths, June – 28 deaths. Most accidents were due to rash & negligent driving. Kudos to our team of officers & men!"

Following reports of accidents that claimed dozens of lives on the BengaluruMysuru highway, policemen with radar speed guns were deployed at various spots including Ramanagara and Mandya districts where a major number of accidents had taken place.

According to reports, 296 accidents and 132 deaths occured on the highway since January this year.

ADGP Alok Kumar said that the speed detectors and the AI cameras installed at different locations on the highway have yielded positive results.

"The number of accidents has indeed come down. There were 29 deaths reported in May and 28 in June. The number was further reduced in July, with 8 accidental deaths reported. We will make the highway safer for motorists," ADGP Kumar said.

To ensure road safety, the police are cracking down on motorists who flout the newly implemented rules, leading to the recovery of approximately Rs 7 lakh in fines from violators over the past week, he added.

Recently, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had unveiled a speed detector near Mandya and had said 10 more would be installed along the expressway in the coming days.

The CM had also stated that the state government has also presented a Rs 151 crore proposal to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for improvement of service roads, bypass roads, skywalks among others.

In a recent notification, the NHAI clarified that the recently upgraded Bengaluru-Mysuru highway is an access-controlled national highway and not an expressway.

The maximum allowable speed on this road is set at 100 kmph, as opposed to the 120 kmph limit typically associated with expressways.

The NHAI also banned two-wheelers, autorickshaws, tractors and non-motorised vehicles, multi-axle hydraulic trailer vehicles and quadricycles on accesscontrolled carriages of the highway from August 1.