Incident led to such a jam that the vehicle flow towards the city late at night slowed down
A day after the hoarding fell on the car at GST road-Guindy great separator junction, on Saturday (Photo: DC)
Chennai: Three persons in a car, including two pilots of a domestic airline, had a close shave on Friday night when a huge hoarding erected on GST road near the Guindy grade separator, came crashing down on their car. Luckily, the passengers escaped unhurt. However, the incident led to such a jam that the vehicle flow towards the city late at night slowed down noticeably and traffic was hit on the GST road towards Guindy for more than 45 minutes.
The Supreme Court has banned erection of hoardings in the city, citing various reasons. A majority of the billboards were found to be illegal. An interesting aspect of life in the city is that except in the cantonment area near the GST road and Rajiv Gandhi Salai aka IT highway, nowhere else are billboards displayed in a clutter like this.
Police said that the Toyota Corolla TN01 AP 0506, with Ravi in the driver’s seat, was going towards a star hotel in Nungambakkam from Chennai airport to drop the two pilots of Air Costa flight that had arrived from Jaipur. “It was raining and there was mild wind when the hoarding measuring around 40X20 feet crashed at around 10.45 pm on Friday night. Ravi and his passengers escaped unhurt, though the car was damaged. We arranged another car for the two pilots to go in,” the police said.
The St Thomas Mount police have registered a case in connection with the hoarding crash. According to police, there are as many as 67 hoardings on that side of the GST road on the stretch between Kathipara grade separator and the airport. Of the 67, as many as 42 are situated in Alandur, the police said.
The hoarding are erected and maintained by two agencies Sabari enterprises and Aishwrya enterprises. The billboard which fell on Friday night belonged to Aishwrya enterprises. The national highway authority had issued notice seeking the removal of these hoardings, which obviously are erected with the blessings of the Cantonment board members and officials, on GST road, police sources said. But the agencies setting up the billboards had managed to get a stay against the notice saying that the ban on hoardings applies only to Chennai corporation limit and not to cantonment board areas.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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