Bhubaneswar: Two people have lost their lives to road accidents at Palasuni square in Bhubaneswar in the last two days including a senior citizen. Locals have raised concern about the state of traffic in the capital city as it is not the first time that they have witnessed such accidents in the area. Many have put blame on the construction of the corresponding roads and the negligence of authorities.
Yesterday, a 36-year-old man lost his life after his car got crushed between two Hyva trucks on the National Highway near Palasuni square. The deceased identified as Sumanta Das of Aiginia area in Bhubaneswar was on his way to Jajpur when he had to halt his car due to heavy traffic.
Suddenly, a speeding Hyva truck crashed into a Hyundai car that was right behind Sumanta’s vehicle. Under the impact, the car jumped over the divider and rammed into a motorbike. The persons in the car and bike were fortunate to narrowly escape a major tragedy as the Hyva subsequently rammed into Sumanta’s car crashing it into the rear of another Hyva.
The car got crushed between the two trucks and Sumanta died on the spot. The force of the accident was so powerful that the Hyva in the front also hit the rear of another car.
Not only the accidents in the area but the traffic jam in the aftermath of the accident has also been a major concern. Yesterday’s accident had led to around five hours of traffic jam with hundreds of vehicles lining up on the National Highway. Such a scene, that too in the State Capital, is not acceptable by many.
The number of accidents at Palasuni square may not be overwhelming but more than 45000 people have lost their lives due to road accidents in the State in the last decade, with a total of 15,386 deaths between 2018 and 2020.
While intellectuals have opined on the need for proper steps to keep a check on such accidents, a training for officers of Police and Transport department was inaugurated by Transport Minister Padmanabha Behera yesterday at Police Commissionerate.
The State Level Crash Investigation Training programme will train the officers to provide authentic data of an accident which in turn will facilitate the designing of policy-level interventions for the reduction of road traffic accidents.
