The Hindu Business Line : <I>Not a people's highway </I>

My wife and I just returned to Bangalore from a road-trip to Chennai. There are two main routes: One, via Hosur, Krishnagiri, Ranipet and Poonamallee; and the other through Kolar, Chittoor, Ranipet and Poonamallee. The latter is less travelled and `friendlier'. Truckers tend to avoid it, as it passes through three States — Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu — and has more check-posts. Since we were getting favourable reports about the first route — that the newly-built national highways are wide, well-made and allow smooth high-speed travel — we decided to give it a try. We made it to Chennai one hour faster than the second route. Yet there is bad news: The constant stress and tension engendered by cyclists, tractors, cars and trucks bearing down on the wrong side of the (median-separated) highway. On some stretches, the highway contractor closes one side of the highway if the work is incomplete, of course, with no warning signs. At other places, it is just that the road-user does not care to go all the way to the next break in the median.

To add to the stress, the national highway designer has thoughtfully provided zebra crossings with no advance warning to the motorist speeding at 100kph. How can there be a zebra-crossing on an inter-state highway? Several pedestrians/villagers may be killed before we start looking at basics of highway design. From the villager's point of view, the highway is a major obstacle. He may have to cross over and back many times in a day.

The highway design completely ignores their needs. Presumably, nobody even asked them for their suggestions or requirements before building the road. Certainly, they have not been told on how to deal with this roaring monster called the Golden Quadrilateral or the National Highway. What stops the authorities from working out a complete system of service roads, two-level cross-overs, exits, by-passes and similar features which are common elsewhere in the world? Granted that land acquisition is a big issue, but when we are spending crores of rupees on this "once-in-a-lifetime" project, how can we start with something that is so patently defective?

Though there are multiple lanes, the truckers have not been informed that the centre (right) lane is for fast traffic and that they should stick to the left lane. As a result, we got boxed-in many times by two overloaded trucks groaning along at 30 kmph.

A whole new breed of car drivers is simultaneously trying out high-speed driving, ignoring basics such as signalling lane change, and keeping minimum distance between vehicles. Who is going to teach them the basics of highway discipline? And enforce it? What about speed limits? We did not see a single signage on speeds, right through the 350-km drive. With no evidence of a highway patrol, the average Indian motorist is never going to behave.

These problems have been around for years. But the new national highways are taking this deadly game to a dangerous level — with higher speeds, and greater density of traffic.

Unless the human side of the highway system is addressed, and issues such as design/driver training/user discipline are given top priority, the Golden Quadrilateral runs the risk of becoming another "Bermuda Triangle", into which some people go, never to return.

(The author is a former Executive Director, Ingersoll-Rand (India), Bangalore. He can be contacted at badarags@yahoo.com)

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