Overloading vehicles should be a serious crime

Pic/Rajesh Gupta

A 44-year-old man heading towards Kandivli on his motorcycle lost his left leg when a piling crane collapsed on him. His leg from below his knee was cut off as a result of this. The accident took place on the Eastern Express Highway (EEH) at Vikhroli.

The man was heading home from Navi Mumbai riding his bike. As he approached the exit of the Pant Nagar bridge, a trailer carrying an oversized piling machine toppled onto his bike.

The crane was being operated by a 59-year-old. According to Vikhroli police, the crane operator admitted during interrogation that he was struggling to manage the load on his trailer before the accident. Despite being aware of the vehicle's heavy capacity, he continued speeding recklessly, officials said in our report.

He eventually lost control, causing the trailer to overturn and the heavy-duty machine to crash onto the victim whose leg became trapped.

The key words here are ‘unable to control weight'. This is a common and huge problem on our roads where overloading seems to be done without a care, flouting rules and putting not only driver but others on the road in grave danger.

We have had small vans piling on more passengers than they can take, swerving dangerously. They double up as school buses at times.

We see lorries, trucks which seem to have a weight limit, but sometimes even without weighing the vehicle seems to be piled to bursting limit. Our most obvious example of overloading is piling on four people on a two-wheeler, which we do witness at times on roads with the rider trying to maintain balance. A driver struggling to control their vehicle is a recipe for disaster on our roads.