Crack down on dangerously overloaded trucks, say experts

NEW DELHI - As an Ivory Coast national battles for life after iron rods jutting out of a truck pierced his body in the capital, dangerously overloaded vehicles are back under the scanner. Traffic experts warn that such accidents will continue unless those responsible are severely punished.

Pointing out that there are no safety aspects or specifications in the country’s Motor Vehicles Act for trucks that carry construction material, they say traffic police should impose fines on such vehicles that ply without adequate safety measures.

Sharfuddin, the director of the Institute of Road Traffic Education, a non-profit organisation working for improving traffic management, felt that poor law enforcement is the reason behind such incidents.

“Poor enforcement and regulation of traffic is the main cause of such accidents. Roads are not wide enough; huge trucks carrying iron rods do not bother to follow safety measures. Almost all roads in Delhi are prone to accidents,” he told IANS.

P.K. Sarkar, a professor in the School of Planning and Architecture, said: “In Western countries, building materials are totally concealed while they are being transported in trams, but in our country iron rods are transported even in cycle rickshaws and hand carts.”

Head of All India Institute of Medical Sciences’s (AIIMS) trauma centre M.C. Mishra said owners of such trucks should be severely punished.

“Every time I attend to such accident cases, I pray that they stop. It happens due to sheer negligence of truck drivers. Such accidents are easily avoidable. The owners of these trucks should be severely punished and the truck should be impounded,” he said.

Mishra said they face several challenges while handling such cases.

“In the case of the Ivory Coast national, the unclean rods have gone inside the victim’s body. Tackling infection will be our key challenge. We have to work on it for a couple of days,” Mishra added.

On Monday, two Africans studying IT here - Adoma and Cheick - met with the accident when their car collided with an iron-rod carrying truck near Savitri cinema in south Delhi.

Two iron rods pierced the wind screen of their car, entered Adoma’s right arm, chest and then the seat. Cheick, who was sitting behind the driver’s seat, was injured in his leg by one rod that pierced through Adoma’s body. Adoma is still in a critical condition.

Last month in a similar accident in Kalkaji area, an auto-rickshaw collided with a truck carrying iron rods which pierced through auto driver Amrik Singh’s thigh.

In another case last year, doctors in Delhi removed a five-foot-long and two-inch wide iron rod from the chest of a youth after a six-hour long surgery.

Asked about steps taken by police to tackle such accidents, Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Satyendra Garg told IANS: “We have booked around 54,000 commercial vehicles for violating traffic rules this year till April 15.

“Also, as many challans have been issued against vehicles that include both high loaded vehicles (those that carry goods more than the vehicle’s capacity and long loaded vehicles - those that carry the goods which propel out of the vehicle).”

“If trucks are involved in such accidents, police will register and investigate the case, and overloaded trucks will be under the scanner of the traffic police,” Garg added.