CHENNAI: A deadly combination of rash driving and official callousness caused one of the freakiest accidents in the city on Thursday, when a speeding SUV fell off an unfinished rail overbridge in suburban Pallavaram. There were apparently no signboards or barricades at the entrance of the flyover.The car, which according to eyewitnesses was moving very fast, fell from a height of about 50 feet and landed on the railway track around 11.10am. The driver, who was the lone occupant of the car, was rescued from its mangled remains and admitted to a private hospital in Velachery with head injuries and fractures of the legs.
Passengers waiting at the Pallavaram station witnessed a scene right out of an action movie when the car literally flew off the edge of the flyover and crashed on the railway line. The car driver was later identified as Divakar (30), a resident of Vyasarpadi.
Railway police sources said Divakar was on his way to a private engineering college to pick up an application form for his sister. As GST Road was clogged with traffic, he took the flyover without realising that the structure meant to connect GST Road with Old Pallavaram was incomplete.
Onlookers said some of them at the foot of the bridge had shouted at the driver not to proceed, but Divakar did not hear them as the SUV’s windows were rolled up. Witnesses said the driver could have tried to apply brakes when he realised that there was no road ahead, but it was too late. Fortunately, the vehicle did not get entangled in the high tension power-line over the railway track. Luckily, there was no train passing by.
An official of the state highways department, which is constructing the flyover, admitted on condition of anonymity that not erecting barricades and signboards at the project site was the department’s fault.
A railway police official said the railway track was not damaged. “We used a crane to remove the vehicle from the spot. EMU operations between Tambaram and Chennai Beach were disrupted for more than an hour. A case has been booked against the driver for rash and negligent driving,” he said.
