Of 5,949 accidents in 4 yrs, 2,719 involved old, ill-maintained trucks

The Yeshwantrao Chavan Expressway connecting Mumbai and Pune saw 5,949 accidents in last four years. And of these, 2,719 accidents involved old, ill-maintained trucks.

Pune highway police officials said the last four years have also seen 182 lives being claimed in E-way accidents, though there is no data pointing to how many deaths involved trucks. According to Brig (Retd) Subash Malik of Ideal Road Builders, in-charge of the operations and maintenance of E-way, various types of trucks were the main offenders followed by cars. “Many ill-maintained and old trucks ply on the E-way; this is the major cause of breakdowns. Also, some of the trucks are barely able to go over 60 km per hour. So trucks coming from behind try to overtake them and block movement in other lanes. This affects the movement of cars at high speed, leading to traffic jams. The problem is acute in the ghat section,” said Malik.

“With 2,176 accidents, cars accounted for the second highest number of accidents on the E-way since 2006. This was followed by jeeps with 869 accidents, while there were only 177 accidents involving buses,” he said.

What is alarming is that this is the situation when the E-way is operating at 35 per cent of its capacity. “Imagine what would the situation be when the expressway is operating at 80 or 90 per cent of its capacity a few years down the line,” said Malik.

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