In a major accident on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway, a private sleeper bus enroute to Motihari, Bihar from Delhi collided with a truck parked on the roadside around 10.30 pm on Wednesday night, resulting in the death of 16 passengers while 35 were injured out of whom 10 were serious. The injured were admitted to PGI Hospital in Saifai of Uttar Pradesh’s Etawah district.
According to the available information, there were 90 passengers on the bus. As it was a sleeper bus, most of the passengers were asleep at the time of the collision.
Inspector General Range Agra A Satish Ganesh said the bus was in high speed and the driver probably dozed off and couldn’t apply brakes in time. He added that the police and regional people helped in rescuing the injured passengers from the wrecked bus.
The UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath issued immediate instructions to the local administration to take good care of the injured. However, there has been no announcement yet about any ex-gratia to be given to the families of the deceased.
Local resident and social activist Gyas Qureshi said the government has made several rules for traffic management but the menace of trucks parked illegally on the roadsides which cause countless accidents, is still to be resolved.
He said that the entire Lucknow Expressway is a no parking zone except designated emergency parkings, but truck drivers do not pay any attention to these rules, which causes accidents.
Despite strict actions being taken by the central and state governments in the direction of traffic regulation and reform, the number of accidents taking place in the country is not dropping as expected. In fact, the numbers of accidental deaths are still rising even after the high penalties imposed of traffic violations.
Social activist Rajkumar Nagrath said that ensuring no trucks are parked on the roads should be a part of the roadside patrol duty of the police. If proper care is taken, such accidents could be easily avoided. He also said that night-buses should mandatorily have two drivers but it is seen that a number of buses run with just one driver to avoid accidents. If there are two drivers in the bus, especially on one that is running on a long route, accidents caused by the lack of attention of one driver due to sleepiness could be averted.
Source: India Today
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