Highways to Hell: 5 Most accident prone roads for trailers and trucks

Courtesy: Indiatimes

Trucking in India is not an easy job and this has been proved every day with the number of road accidents caused by these heavy vehicles. Here are some “Highways to Hell” for truckers and trailer drivers where a huge number of accidents happen every year. 

5. Munnar Road

Courtesy: NativePlanet

Don’t get swayed away by the beautiful breathtaking experience while driving through this beautiful road. The narrow road and high traffic of heavy duty vehicles on Munnar make it extremely dangerous to drive here. Don’t even think about overtaking!

4. Mumbai-Pune Expressway

Courtesy: nhai

Going by the statistics, Mumbai-Pune Expressway is one of the most accident prone highway in India for truck and trailers. The expressway has witnessed 14500 accidents since its construction in 2002 till August 2016. Out of this, a large number has been caused by heavy vehicles like buses, trucks, and trailers. Investigations revealed that 60% of accidents happened due to carelessness and human error.  

3. National Highway 2

Courtesy: istockphoto.com/Meinzahn

Constituting a major portion of the historical Grand Trunk Road, NH 2 connects the states of Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal, and is the busiest National Highway in India. While truckers drive along the stretch of 1,465 km of this highway, they have to cross 59 black spots, which is the highest number on a single highway in India.

2. Nongstoin-Sabroom Highway

Courtesy: Firstpost

With an average of 1 black spot in every 19 km, NongstoiSabroom Highway is our number 2 pick for the most dangerous highway for truck and trailers in India. Due to its steep drops along the entire road and low visibility in rainy days, all truckers are extra careful while driving on this road.  To add some venom on top, this road is densely packed with heavy trucks and trailers.

1. Thane Chennai Highway

Courtesy: istockphoto.com/Meinzahn

With the length of 1,235 km, NH 4 has around 27 black spots and has recorded most fatalities in the year 2015. The obsession with speed, drunk driving and low visibility in winters has led this road to be a leader in causing fatal accidents here.

Conclusion

In a country like India, where thousands of people die every year in road accidents, it will be wrong to consider only these 5 highways as dangerous. Indian roads do not design traffic management systems to separate different streams of traffic. It is a common sight in Indian Highways to have black and yellow curb stones embedded into the concrete, cliffs with no barriers, and guard-rails with tapered ends, which can send a heavy vehicle to hell.