Palghar: Crash attenuator installed after Mistry’s death comes off in truck accident

Palghar: A speeding truck rammed into a crash attenuator at the start of Surya river bridge on Mumbai-Ahmedabad National Highway (NH48) and uprooted it on Thursday. The attenuator was installed on December 4, 2022, three months after the accident in which industrialist Cyrus Mistry and his friend Jehangir Pundole died. 

Activists are now raising questions on both the faulty design of NH 48 and the professed effectiveness of the attenuator. They have attributed recurring accidents on the same site to a chronic black spot and demanded that road design be fixed immediately.

Driver lost control of the truck

The speeding truck rammed into the attenuator near Charoti in Dahanu taluka at 2am on May 11. The safety structure was installed about 10mt before the bridge railing. The police said the driver lost control of the truck but no casualties were reported.

After Mistry and Pundole were killed last year, several safety guards like blinkers, reflectors, signages and crash railings were installed at chronic black spots along the highway. After the Thursday accident, the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has temporarily set up blinkers and reflectors at the site till the crash attenuator is reinstalled.

A crash attenuator is a road safety device designed to absorb a colliding vehicle’s kinetic energy, thus ensuring reduced damage to the vehicle and preventing loss of lives. By installing it at Surya bridge, the NHAI had indirectly admitted the flaw in the highway design that resulted in the accident of Mistry’s car, a Mercedes.

Cyrus Mistry Accident

At Charoti on NH48, a three-lane road towards Mumbai splits into two – one on the east side and two on the west side – before the Surya river bridge. Cyrus Mistry’s friend Dr Anahita Pundole was driving her Mercedes on Sept 4, 2022, presumably in the second lane and was allegedly trying to overtake a heavy vehicle from the wrong side. However, she misjudged the bifurcation and crashed into it. The investigation into the accident was conducted by the police, the Regional Transport Office, Mercedes and a few other agencies.