Roller-type guard walls that absorb the impact of a crash and reduce the damage suffered by a vehicle will be set up on the Major Arterial Road (MAR), which cuts across New Town, an officer of the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate’s traffic wing said.
In addition to such crash walls, conical or rectangular moveable structures made of reinforced plastic will be placed on the road to create chicanes to slow down vehicles, the officer said.
“Officers from the commissionerate and representatives of the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) will meet to decide where the crash walls and the conical or rectangular structures will be placed,” the officer said.
NKDA chairman Debashis Sen said a feasibility study for the project would be carried out. “The traffic wing of the commissionerate will identify the places where the structures will be put up,” he said.
Roller-type guard walls are impact-mitigating structures that help reduce the impact to a large extent if a vehicle hits them, an officer of the commissionerate said.
“Unlike regular metal guard walls, which are commonly seen on roads and flyovers across the city, the ones we have decided to put up on the MAR reduce the impact of a crash to a large extent as they have a shock-absorbing and dissipating effect,” the officer said.
This newspaper has reported on multiple occasions about the perils of metal guard walls that are placed at random to slow down vehicles or create a police check post. These guard walls, meant to make a drive safer, are a traffic hazard themselves and have been responsible for multiple accidents.
“Metal guard rails should not be placed on roads to curb speeding because they can cause serious injuries if vehicles accidentally hit them,” Bhargab Maitra, a professor of civil engineering at IIT Kharagpur who specialises in road safety, told The Telegraph on Friday.
Maitra, who has been engaged by the state government multiple times to advise on traffic issues, said any object placed on a road to reduce the speed of vehicles, apart from a surface hindrance such as a speed-breaker, should ideally be of plastic, fibre or vulcanised rubber, which absorb the impact of a crash.
Metal guard rails, in contrast, transfer the impact back to the vehicle.
“It is good to know that something like this is being planned for New Town. I hope there will be some semblance of order when the new guard rail code comes into effect in New Town after a trial run,” Maitra said.
“Even water-filled plastic barrels, which absorb the impact of a crash, can be placed in accident-prone zones.”
Roller-type crash walls, the professor said, are commonly seen in the US and the UK.
Maitra suggested that the authorities paint any object placed on a road to slow down vehicles in black and yellow because these are the most visible colours in all conditions. Also, he said, such objects should be fitted with a flashing red light so commuters can spot them from a distance.
Across Kolkata, guard rails are painted in blue and white, which may not be visible from a distance when the sky is clear.