The Calcutta police traffic safety week started on Monday with multiple accidents across the city, including one in which a bus overturned near Victoria Memorial on Queensway — a stretch where buses are not allowed to ply.

A bus plying between Santragachhi and Esplanade rammed into a roadside tree and overturned, injuring a passenger and the driver.

The accident occurred at the Queensway-Casuarina Avenue crossing around 10am. It was not immediately clear what triggered the accident but the driver was speeding, the police said.

“There were no pedestrians and no one was on the footboard of the bus. Or else, the consequences could have been worse,” an officer said.

The driver, Ujjwal Bhowmick, 42, and a passenger, Debasish Dey, 47, were taken to SSKM Hospital. The other passengers came out of the overturned bus and left the spot.

Passengers inside the overturned bus. (Picture taken by a sergeant)

The officer said the driver had told cops that he did not know buses were not allowed on the stretch.

Bhowmick and Dey were discharged from the hospital later in the day.

Officers of Hastings police station have seized the bus. “It is still to be ascertained if the vehicle developed a mechanical fault or the driver was at fault,” a traffic police officer said. “We are investigating how it entered the stretch where buses are not allowed.”

Around 4.30am, the driver of a mini-truck was killed when the vehicle rammed into a parked truck on Vivekananda Setu. Rangolal Roy, the driver, was declared dead at SSKM. The police suspect he fell asleep at the wheel.

Both vehicles have been seized.

Later in the day, a motorcyclist was injured when a bus hit him near the crossing of Government Place (East) and Esplanade Row, off Chowringhee Road. The police said Lalan Kumar Ojha, 42, was wearing a helmet, which is why he did not suffer head injuries.

Ojha, a resident of Karl Marx Sarani in Kidderpore, was taken to Calcutta Medical College and Hospital.

The number of fatalities on city roads last year was 294, according to Lalbazar records. In 2017, it was 329.