White-topped roads sans speed breakers leading to accidents

Hameed Ashraf | NT

Every party that has formed the government in the state has promised good roads and adequate infrastructure in the city. But the problems of Bengaluru residents seem never ending.One such problem that could put motorists, especially the lives of two-wheeler riders, pedestrians and even stray animals at serious risk is that the white-topped roads have no standards or provision for speed breakers.

Annaswamy Mudaliar road is one among the white-topped roads that allows the vehicles continuously cruising without any hindrance making it more prone to accidents. “There is no speed limit in the area. A lot of people ride on the stretch and often there are no cops to check. Earlier goods vehicles were not allowed during the peak hours but now there is no one to monitor them,” a resident told News Trail.

After facing much criticism from the residents for bad roads, BBMP had, in 2018, come up with a grand plan of concretising roads to erase potholes, presumably (and disputably) forever. Called white topping, these are rigid pavements made primarily of concrete rather than black-topped or asphalt roads, called flexible pavements, made of crushed rocks and sand and bound by bitumen.

According to the statistics released by Bengaluru Traffic police, the number of fatal road accidents on the white-topped roads has increased in the city. In 2019, 34 people lost their lives in road accidents. In 2020, 25 people reportedly died and in 2021, 65 people lost their lives in the accidents.

An official from the traffic engineering cell, on the condition of anonymity, said, “We don’t think we have provision for installing speed breakers on white-topped roads. The department which took up the work should have installed the speed breakers. Neither concrete nor asphalt as speed breakers will hold on white-topped roads,” the official said.

K.T. Nagaraj, Chief Engineer, BBMP (Project Central) said, “The only way to install speed breakers on white-topped surface is to use mastic asphalt. We will take up this work soon,” he told News Trail. The project has also caused immense inconvenience to commuters and the citizens in the areas as the roads getting white-topped are left dug up. It becomes a mess during the monsoons, there is a huge amount of dust, and worst of all - constant traffic jams and chaos. Improper planning also affected the drainage systems of these roads – there was no exit for the rainwater to go on white-topped roads.