Pavanje junction on NH-66 fast becoming a road accident ‘black spot’

Team Udayavani, Apr 24, 2022, 1:17 PM IST

‎Haleangady:‎‎ The junction at Pavanje on National Highway 66 is fast becoming an accident blackspot. The number of road accidents here is on the rise.

The horrific accident, on the night of Thursday, April 21, between an Omni car and a bus has left the locals shocked and angry. A bus moving on the highway had rammed into a car that was trying to cross the highway from the wrong direction. Two people were killed in the ghastly accident another was critically injured.

Locals allege negligence and road design defects by the highway authorities for the rising number of mishaps at this junction. The junction sits right next to the popular Pavanje Sri Jananshakthi Subramanyaswamy Temple, raising the need for a pedestrian crossing, The absence of a service road at this busy junction indirectly contributes to the rising road incidents, they say.

Moreover, a road from the inner parts of Haleangady reaches the National Highway just 200 meters away from the Pavanje junction. Due to the shorter distance,  many vehicles going towards Mangaluru use this shortcut, moving in the wrong direction on the National Highway and endangering themselves and others, locals say.

Though barricades and the iron divider have been erected at the junction by the temple authorities to limit the speed of vehicles, they have been ineffective at stopping the accidents.

Just like Haleangady, the Pavanje is also growing. To cater to the safe movement of rising traffic, a service road is a right solution, the locals added.

Several petitions have been raised with the highway department in this regard, but they have fallen on deaf ears. The temple authorities took action on their own to affix permanent steel dividers, said Haleangady gram panchayat member Vinod Kumar Koluvailu.

Gopalakrishna Bhat, the in-charge inspector of the North-zone Traffic police station, also agreed that a service road could improve the safety at the junction. He said the present arrangements were insufficient to prevent the accidents.