Truck ploughs through girder, cabbie injured

MUMBAI: The problem of container trucks ploughing through girders on the Sion Hospital stretch of the arterial Ambedkar Road continues unabated with yet another accident taking place on Saturday morning. This is the fourth such accident on the stretch in the last one year. Passing motorists have been hurt in two of these instances.
On Saturday, a port-bound container truck crashed through the steel frame meant to restrict oversized vehicles on the recently constructed Sion flyover.The truck carried on under its momentum after dislodging the bar atop the girder, which crushed a passing cab and sent the driver, Mohammed Sayed Jalaluddin (25), to a hospital with head injuries. The Sion police said the accident took place around 6 am. Jalaluddin, who was rushed to Sion Hospital, had not regained consciousness by evening. The driver of the container truck stopped the vehicle and fled when he came across the second girder at the end of the flyover. R Sridhar, who resides in the area, said that the accident resulted in a traffic jam, which went on till 8 am.
In April, a Deonar-bound garbage truck had ploughed into the girder at the Gandhi Market end of the Sion flyover. A cabbie and a motorcyclist had sustained injuries due to flying metal fragments.
On August 14, TOI had highlighted that girders meant to protect King`s Circle railway bridge, a stone`s throw from Sion flyover, had been knocked down thrice over the past one year by container trucks. Hardly had the girder been put up again when a container truck knocked it down at 4 am on October 10.
Locals, such as Sridhar, said that the problem calls for a meeting between senior officials of Central Railway, the traffic police and the BMC. According to senior inspector Keshav Sanap of the Matunga traffic police division, the accidents are caused by rash night truckers. "Some of them are inebriated while others are new to Mumbai and unaware of alternate routes ," he said.