Lack of safety measures in goods vehicles

Mysore/Mysuru: Stodgy vehicles carrying goods of types, but without following any safety norms as stipulated by Transport Department, have become rampant in the city, but the authorities concerned, except for intercepting them at select locations to penalise the offenders, are in no mood to crack a whip on them.

Concrete mixers mounted on the back of trucks, tipper lorries carrying overloaded sand and gravel stones and several other goods are commonly seen on the city roads. As is the rule, those carrying construction materials, should carry sand and stone to the container level and must be covered with cloth or tarpaulin sheet to avoid the dust from spilling on to the road, that may often hit the eyes of vehicle users, causing momentary blindness, leading to mishaps, sometimes even fatal.

In the case of iron grills and other metals that protrude from the vehicle containers, the red coloured cloth should be tied to the end of these materials, as a warning to other vehicle users to maintain a distance for their own safety. The incidents of these sharp edged articles piercing those who come in contact with them accidentally, if the vehicles carrying them stop abruptly upon the application of sudden brake, cannot be ruled out.

The concrete mixer vehicles will be functioning on the move, preparing the gravel, emitting a raucous sound, hitting the ears of road users. When such vehicle drivers fail to negotiate the turn at  steep curves, the concrete gravel spill over the road, posing a threat to vehicle users, especially two-wheeler riders.

A concerned public said, the lorry operators prefer to overload the vehicles to avoid the amount of fuel consumed in case of running multiple trips on the same route. Instead of carrying the load restricted to the capacity, they carry more, coolly ignoring the danger that may cause.

Recently, a goods autorickshaw driver carrying iron grills for construction works, applied a sudden brake at Tilak Nagar junction in Bamboo Bazaar on New Sayyaji Rao Road. The driver decided to stop to avoid jumping the signal, but ended up causing the fall of iron grills in the front.

Fortunately, there were none standing in the front, who otherwise may have fallen victim to the reckless driving of the goods auto driver.

Another issue is about goods vehicles misused for transporting people, mostly daily wagers and farm workers. These gross violations on the part of goods vehicle operators, have to be dealt with a iron hand, rather than waking up to the heat of the moment, demand the concerned public.