Every day, the newly opened Gurgaon-Dausa (Rajasthan) section of the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway sees Mercs, BMWs, Ferraris and Porsches, among others, scorching the concrete and stretching the speed guns meant for a much tamer job – of monitoring traffic speed. Racing up and down the expanse of the road, Grand Prix style, these cars easily breach the 200kmph mark. The top speed captured on cameras is 260kmph.
The speed limit on the expressway is 120kmph. The daily average of supercars that hit the road is 5-6 and that of the number of cars that breach the speed limit is 500, the Vehicle Speed Detection System (VSDS) installed on the expressway shows. Around 20,000 vehicles use the expressway every day.
Driving at outrageous speeds on expressways must be checked. Such drivers not only endanger their own lives, but also put others in peril. Authorities should proactively enforce a graded punishment system immediately. For instance, a first offence could attract a hefty fine; the second
In the last two months, two accidents – one involving a Rolls-Royce and another a Mercedes, both being driven at over 200kmph – have been reported on the expressway in Nuh. The crashes claimed three lives.
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), which had written to Haryana Police in August for help in enforcing traffic norms on the expressway, has installed VSDS and Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras on the section of the highway in Gurgaon district. So, the VSDS data is restricted to what the cameras see only in Gurgaon and the number of violations would be much higher.
NHAI officials said on Monday VSDS recorded around 6,000 vehicles exceeding the speed limit on the expressway over the past 20 days in Gurgaon. Of these, around 100 were Ferraris, BMWs, Rolls-Royce, Porsches, Mercs and other such high-end cars that were speeding at 200-260kmph. “Overtaking at such high speeds can be fatal. Cars moving above 200kmph can easily lose control and ram into trucks or other vehicles moving at normal speeds,” an NHAI official said.
NHAI project director Mukesh Kumar Meena said it was in talks with Haryana cops to integrate VSDS with traffic police’s system. “We are in touch with IGP (traffic) of Haryana Police and a team has already visited our expressway control room to integrate the system with enforcement measures,” Meena said.
He explained that NHAI manages the expressway, but it has no authority to take punitive action against motorists who flout traffic norms. “We collect data from the camera network and send alerts with details of the vehicles to police for action,” he added.
DCP (traffic) Gurgaon Virender Vij on Monday said deploying cops on a high-speed corridor to issue challans wasn’t “practical”. “It is not safe for cops to stand on the expressway and stop speeding vehicles. Cameras are the best way to detect and penalise violators,” he said.
Meant to connect India’s largest metropolises, the expressway’s 246km section from Sohna in Gurgaon to Dausa in Rajasthan was opened for traffic in February this year. The eight-lane expressway covers 160km in Haryana, traversing 11 villages in Gurgaon, 47 in Nuh and seven in Palwal.
TOI had reported in September about frequent thefts of highway lights, lanes taken up by parked trucks, unauthorised dhabas and commuters stopping for social media reels being among the challenges that NHAI was facing in managing the highway.
On August 22, a Rolls-Royce that broke away from a 20-car convoy crashed into the back of a fuel tanker on the expressway in Nuh, killing the driver and co-driver of the tanker. Two weeks later, on September 5, a Mercedes collided with a milk tanker on the same expressway section. The Mercedes driver succumbed to his injuries at a hospital.
The highway has CCTV cameras installed every kilometre.
