An easily preventable ‘road accident’

A few days ago, a young university lady lecturer was run over by a lorry at the Wickramasinghe Pura junction, Battaramulla. She was using a phone call while crossing the road. She was distracted by the call and lost sight of the moving traffic at this dangerous junction. She paid for her mistake with her precious young life.

It is common to see women and young working girls on roads, holding phones to their ears. This has almost become a fashion.If using a phone while driving a vehicle is an offence, it is difficult to see why it is not an offence to use a phone while walking along the busy streets full of untrained drivers and undisciplined riders?

As for the other causes of the aforesaid fatal accident, of what use is the invisible traffic light installed at the badly designed junction which is meant only to control traffic moving along the main road. It fails to warn the undisciplined drivers coming down from Wickramasinghe Pura. There is no light to control their entry into the main road.

The writer who lives in the area has faced many bad experiences at this spot mainly caused by drivers coming down Wickramasinghe Pura, failing to give way to vehicles on the right on the main road. The steep gradient of this road adds more to this problem.

Eng. Anton Nanayakkara