Southern Expressway Opens, First Crash (Photos)
Topple turtle.
I’m all for the Southern Expressway. It makes going south for holidays easier and makes living out of Colombo more feasible. It just opened yesterday, and saw its first crash when a vehicle skidded off the road.
Despite having a history of ancient water engineering, Sri Lankans have a surprising propensity to be surprised by the rain. Yesterday it rained in spits and this seems to have caused a vehicle (carrying a foreigner and local driver) to skid off the road. They were injured but have been discharged (Daily Mirror)
Is the Southern Expressway intrinsically unsafe? Well, there will be accidents. As discussed previously, they narrowed the shoulder and space between lanes, neither of which caused this accident, though the former would have exacerbated it. Driving at 100k is very different from driving at 50k, or even 80. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve crossed 100 on the Galle Road (that may just be me) and it generally felt illegal and wrong. Sri Lankans need an education in highway driving, which they may get through the media and fear.
One accident in one day is not a great record, let’s hope it gets better. I’m going to try the expressway out next weekend inshallah. Perhaps wearing a helmet.
The Daily Mirror has more pics here. The van got messed up.
If you’d like to debate whether the Expressway is safe, check out this thread on Project Roku
For context: six people were killed on average everyday on Sri Lanka roads before the expressway opened. The injuries must be many times more. It’s not that the other roads are safe.
6 per day means more than 2000 per year. ..
…60000 in 30 years..
That is equal to total deaths due to 30year civil war.. !!!
You should be careful about assuming the same number applies back 30 years.
Seems you want a source: http://sundaytimes.lk/110515/News/nws_30.html. To triangulate: see comparative data from 15 yrs back: http://lbo.lk/fullstory.php?nid=984227178
i am not getting on that road for a while
Inshallah!
oh god,Silurians please study more about the highways and how to use it.
Yes.. the drivers need to be educated properly. I think they just can’t hold themselves back when they see an open road. ..
[...] So, as we can see, the hype is on and the excitement grows every minute. But, with the good news the bad news also seems to come around. It was reported today morning that the first accident in the expressway has also occurred and it has injured two people. [...]
we waited for so long to open this road it was dream to have a express road but finally bad news the first accident it is not because of the road it is because of the reckless driving.
According to the Beeb, “….the lanes are narrower than the international norm, and the hard shoulder or breakdown lane is considerably narrower (1.75m as opposed to 2.5m), which means the door on the driver’s side cannot be opened once the car has stopped.”
Which genius decided that Sri Lanka needed narrower lanes? This will be an enabling factor for greater deaths when cars have broken down and are stopped on the hard shoulder. I guess we’ll see a practical demonstration of the theory of evolution in action over the next few months. The reckless and stupid drivers will er… go first.
[...] expressways and highways, via the RDA. The Colombo Southern Expressway opened to much fanfare and one accident. It’s still a great thing. To quote a tweet from Hajara: “It took just 55 minutes from [...]
[...] (E01) served 6,000 vehicles in its first 18 hours, collecting Rs. 1.5 million in tolls and seeing one accident. As the latter shows, for this highway, it’s important to read the manual. The RDA has been [...]
The problem with highways in Sri Lanka is people don’t drive in their lanes. Many times I have see the left side wheels on one lane and the right side wheels on the other making the marking lines in between (80% ladies and 90% men). Even if there is room on the left lane people stick to the middle there again one half on the wrong lane. I sometimes make a 30 km journey home in the night in 20 minutes translating it to 90 kmph but can make it faster if there are no cross roads. The nights you get people simply crossing the main road without looking. It is really not the speed but how you drive and your experience. The vehicle you drive and your tyres are very important. If you cannot react fast you are in trouble. Most drivers cannot make quick decisions nor react fast. Getting a driving license is not hard here and having one does not mean you are the perfect driver.
Educating pepole to stick to their lanes will make practically every road accident free and less congested. The police should look out for this right along a road and not at junctions only.
With the experience we gained from the several kinds of accidents the authorities must take steps to educate the users properly.
Even now the educational programes are conducted very effectively that has to be improved with the learnings.