Gurugram: Two trucks collide, affect traffic on both carriageways of NH 48

“It took me nearly 25 minutes to cross 3km on NH-48. There was a heavy backlog of vehicles, starting just before Hero Honda Chowk all the way till the accident site,” said Karan Singh, a resident of Manesar.

Traffic between Hero Honda Chowk and Narsinghpur on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway was severely affected for over 10 hours on Thursday after two trucks collided and overturned on both carriageways of NH-48.

Gurugram, India-May 12: A truck overturned on the Delhi-Jaipur highway in Narsinghpur village near the foot-over bridge, in Gurugram, India, on Thursday, 12 May 2022. (Photo by Parveen Kumar/Hindustan Times)(Pic to go with Kartik Kumar's Story)

Traffic police officials said around 1am on Thursday, two trucks collided near the Narsinghpur foot over bridge (FOB) on the Jaipur-Delhi carriageway. Such was the impact of the collision that one of the trucks loaded with clothing material broke the grills on the median and overturned on the opposite carriageway.

“Both the trucks were travelling on the Jaipur-Delhi carriageway, one after the other. The driver of one of the trucks--laden with construction material--was in front and suddenly applied brakes, following which the truck loaded with clothing material rammed from behind,” said Ravinder Singh Tomar, deputy commissioner of police (traffic).

“Following the collision, the truck laden with construction material overturned on the Jaipur-Delhi carriageway. The other truck broke the grills of the median and overturned on the Delhi-Jaipur carriageway,” said the DCP adding they are yet to find out why the driver of the truck, which was in front, suddenly applied brakes. Both the drivers sustained minor injuries.

“It took me nearly 25 minutes to cross 3km on NH-48. There was a heavy backlog of vehicles, starting just before Hero Honda Chowk all the way till the accident site,” said Karan Singh, a resident of Manesar.

Traffic police removed the truck loaded with construction materials from the Jaipur-Delhi carriageway with the help of four hydra cranes around 8.30am. Traffic returned to normalcy after the truck on the opposite carriageway was removed around 11am.

According to traffic police, procuring four hydra cranes and removing construction and clothing material from the expressway was a tedious process and it took them nearly 10 hours to remove the trucks from the carriageways.

“Two lanes of each carriageway as well as the service lanes were made available for traffic movement. Our marshalls on ground directed vehicles towards the free lanes and ensured the traffic kept moving. Overall, 20 police officials were deployed to direct vehicles towards the available lanes and manage traffic,” said Tomar.

The breakdown of heavy vehicles has been a major issue on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway.

Last month, a crane caught fire just before Terminal 3 exit of the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway, resulting in a 9km snarl all the way till Iffco Chowk. Traffic movement was affected for over 26 hours until the crane was removed.

In June 2019, a truck broke down on the service lane of the Delhi Gurgaon Expressway, just before the exit to the Dwarka Link Road, which resulted in a 7.5km pile up till Iffco Chowk and disrupted traffic movement on the highways for nearly six hours.