FIRs against 3 drivers for parking trucks on EPE

Ghaziabad: Police have filed FIRs against three truck drivers for pulling over on the Eastern Peripheral Expressway (EPE) after they were told to take the NH9 and Meerut Road for Delhi due to a diversion of traffic from the Delhi-Meerut Expressway for the annual kanwar yatra.
The cases were lodged as the vehicles were not removed from the expressway despite warnings from a police patrol team, police said.
Additional DCP (traffic) Piyush Singh said recent surveys have shown that parking on speedways, where vehicles move at 80-120kmph, was one of the major reasons for accidents or pileups on expressways, especially near sharp turns or when dense fog reduces visibility in winter. But paltry fines — just Rs 500 under Section 179 of the Motor Vehicles Act — mostly fail to deter drivers from illegally parking on e-ways.
On June 15, four persons died and 18 — nine of them minors — were injured when a truck crashed into a lorry whose driver had parked the vehicle for a toilet break off the EPE.
“The drivers — Sabir Ansari, Aamil Akhtar and Sanjay Lal, all residents of Bihar — were travelling towards Delhi and were diverted from DME towards NH9. They took the vehicles to EPE instead and parked them near Masuri. Traffic inspector Allam Ansari spotted the vehicles on the EPE during the routine rounds and asked the drivers to remove the trucks. FIRs were registered at Masoori police station under section 126 (2) (wrongful restraint) of the BNS when the trucks were not removed,” Singh said.
Between Jan and June, 11 accidents were reported on EPE in which seven people died and 33 were injured, data shared by the traffic department showed.