National Highway or a deathtrap?

The 38 Km stretch of the National Highway 47 (NH 47) has been criticised for turning into a death trap for both motorists and pedestrians as the figures for the last few months depict. As per the information obtained by P. B. Satheesh of ‘Nervazhi’, an NGO working in the field of RTI, atleast 1168 incidents have taken place in a span of 21 months (January’11 to September’13).

The data obtained from five police stations of the area, namely, Ollur, Puthukkad, Kodakara, Chalakkudy and Koratty, in all 252 people (including 54 pedestrians) have lost their lives, this is along with 1512 more people who were critically injured or have been permanently disabled. The high rate of incidents are evidence of the absence of proper infrastructure to cross the road by the pedestrians along with lack of facility for traffic control on this busy NH. With even the international speed motor racers avoiding driving into the roads of the country, such fatality figures raise questions about the planning and maintenance of the highway.