A public works department study has identified two crossings on Basanti Highway as most prone to accidents and marked them “black spots”.

The study has declared the road that connects Science City to Basanti in the Sunderbans, South 24-Parganas, “prone to accidents”.

At least nine people were killed in 18 accidents in the past three years at the Ghatakpukur and Chandipur crossings on the road, making them two of the most accident-prone crossings on the highway.

The road that is part of State Highway 3 sees a mixed traffic comprising buses, cars, two-wheelers, e-rickshaws, trucks and autos every day.

The first such study was carried out to identify areas or pockets along the 23km-long highway, notorious for the risk it poses to people because of sharp bends and absence of proper signage, that witness the most accidents.

Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTS), an IT major, has an office along the road near Bantala, which houses the Calcutta Leather Complex.

Every day cars and two-wheelers struggle to avoid potholes on a road where slack policing makes driving more risky to reach these destinations.

The volume of traffic has increased over the years but infrastructure (lights, divider, signage) has not.

In February 2017, a Cognizant employee and the driver of the car he was in were killed in a collision with a bus near Bantala market.

Dipanjan Banerjee, 27, the employee, died of multiple injuries on the way to hospital, while the driver, Santosh Singh Yadav, was killed on the spot. His colleague Anirban Adhikary had suffered critical injuries.

There’s been no visible change in the two years since the accident except for some repairs on a few stretches.

“The problem here is speed and more so at night. Buses and trucks speed past each other and there are hardly any cops,” a CTS employee who lives in Sodepur said. “I used to drive down in the past. But I have stopped given the spate of accidents.”

Trucks carrying construction materials take the road and they often race with buses leading to accidents, police said.

In February 2018, Bablu Das, an auto driver, and a passengers, Subir Ranjan Sanpui, were killed after being hit by a vehicle at Arupota on the highway.

Accidents have occurred on the entire road but the two crossings — Ghatakpukur and Chandipur — have witnessed the maximum number of accidents between 2016 and 2018, members of the study team said.

There are similar stretches, including the one near Chowbagha, that are problematic because of faulty road design, a PWD engineer, who was part of the team, said.

“We have zeroed in on Ghatakpukur and Chandipur as these two crossings have witnessed the most number of accidents,” the engineer said. “The study focused on two key aspects — the rate of accidents and the rate of severity.”

These two crossings have blind spots, which make it difficult for drivers to spot vehicles moving in the opposite directions, the engineer said.

There is no divider and “free” left turns at these crossings adds to the problem, he said. Trees by the roadside come in the way of clear vision, according to the study.

What makes these two crossings even more challenging is the absence of signals and poor police vigil, another engineer said.

“There is a fish market at the crossing of Basanti Highway and Lauhati-Bhangar Road at Ghatakpukur. As a result, there is considerable pedestrian crossover,” he said.

“On other stretches drivers flout all traffic rules. They are found speaking on phone while driving. In 2016, the panchayat pradhan of Saknya in South 24-Parganas was killed in an accident while talking on the phone and driving.”

There’s a plan to instal three speed cameras, the first at Bantala, as an attempt to bring down accidents, the police said.

The PWD will instal rumble strips to force vehicles to slow down ahead of the two crossings and signage asking motorists and two-wheeler riders to slow down.