MUMBAI: Despite repeated reminders and awareness campaigns, truckers on highways are using the middle or outer lanes while driving. On highways or expressways, heavy vehicles are supposed to keep to the left and use the middle or the lane on the right only to overtake. Lighter or smaller vehicles such as cars and SUVs should ideally have right of way for the middle and outer lanes.
However, this discipline is nowhere visible. Highly placed sources said police is even investigating the probability of a truck being involved in the accident in which two persons including former Tata Sons chief Cyrus Mistry were killed. It is probable, they said, that a heavy vehicle may have veered to the right on the Charoti toll naka stretch, prompting the Mercedes SUV driven by Anahita Pandole to try and overtake from the left at high speed.
Sources with the state government’s infrastructure arm said the sudden narrowing of lanes over the bridge may have caught Pandole unawares at this point. She could have misjudged the width of the road and hit the concrete railing on the side on the left.
Officials said police was carrying out a detailed investigation into this scenario.
In a similar accident some weeks back, Vinayak Mete, a Maratha leader died on the Mumbai-Pune expressway when the driver of his SUV rammed into a multi-axle container truck in an attempt to overtake it. The truck was veering from the middle lane to the outer one.
Nitin Dossa, chairman of the Western India Automobile Association, said lane indiscipline should be dealt with stringent implementation of fines so that no trucker dares to drive at high speed on the right side on highways. “Police should detain them instead of just slapping fines. They should be forced to undergo training before they are released from police stations,” he said.
“On the expressway, trucks for the most part are on the left and middle lane and not the first lane which is for cars. Whereas if you go on the Mumbai-Pune-Bangalore highway via the Pune bypass, you will find trucks in the outer lane. As you keep going further till you take a right to Mahabaleshwar, trucks are commonly found in this lane. As a car driver when you have trucks going at low speeds one is forced to overtake from the wrong side. If an accident happens, the cops or newspapers would say the car was overtaking from the wrong side. Insurance companies would say wrong driving. Taking the right lane once in a while by a trucker is understandable but it has become the norm more or less now,” said Vinod Narayan, a regular motorist.
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