Speeding car falls 40ft off flyover in Delhi’s Janakpuri

The occupants survived because they were wearing seat belts, the safety airbags were deployed and their fall was partly cushioned by hedges and a thin iron fence below.

Two men, allegedly drunk, are battling for their lives after their Honda City car crashed into a Ford Endeavour parked on an elevated road in West Delhi ‘s Janakpuri and fell on the pavement more than 40 feet below on Thursday night, police said.

The car reportedly overturned while speeding on the Vikaspuri flyover and injured the 2 occupants. (Sanchit Khanna/HT PHOTO)

The fall from such a height caused the car to topple a couple of times. The occupants survived because they were wearing seat belts, the safety airbags were deployed and their fall was partly cushioned by hedges and a thin iron fence below, a police investigator said.

A case of rash driving and causing hurt by a negligent act has been registered at the Vikaspuri police station even as the police are yet to decide if the Endeavour driver too should be booked for parking the car on the flyover.

The DCP identified Honda City’s occupants as Anuj Singh and Vijay, both 29-year-old friends who live in outer Delhi’s Karala and Begumpur, respectively. While Singh runs an electrical shop, Vijay (identified by a single name) is into the business of building material.

“They were returning to their homes from Najafgarh after drinking at a friend’s place. Anuj was driving a Honda City owned by his sister-in-law,” Deepak Purohit, deputy commissioner of police (west).

Another investigator, who did not want to be identified, said Anuj’s medical examination showed he had 106mg of alcohol in per 100 ml of his blood -- over three times the permissible limit of 30mg per 100 ml of blood.

“We are yet to receive Vijay’s medical report, but Anuj has told us that both of them were drunk,” the officer said.

The mishap happened around 11 pm, just about 1.5 kilometers after they had climbed the Janakpuri elevated road.

“A businessman had parked his Ford Endeavour on the side and was waiting for someone. The Honda City hit it on the right. Anuj was trying to regain control of the car but his vehicle rammed the wall on the left, flipped and fell over 40 feet below,” the investigator said. The Endeavour suffered damage but the driver escaped unhurt. The car has been seized by the police.

On one side of the pavement on which the car landed is the main road and on the other side is a service lane. A six-feet garden with hedges in middle and a short iron fence separates the main road and the service lane.

The mishap has prompted the police to urge civic authorities to see the possibility of raising the height of its 2.5-feet sidewall . “We’ll write to the civic agencies concerned to see if the height of the sidewalk can be raised. A higher sidewall could have prevented the car from falling,” DCP Purohit said.

“During the daytime, the pavement is used by a large number of pedestrians. Had the car fallen in the day, pedestrians would have been hit,” said Fardeen Alam, a local resident.

“By the time I reached the scene, a crowd had gathered. The car was mangled. One of the occupants had been rescued and taken to a private hospital nearby by the public. The man in the driver’s seat was bleeding from his head and was unconscious,” said Alam.

Police said it was unclear on which side the car had first landed.

Anuj was rescued from the car by an emergency response vehicle (ERV) police team patrolling at that time, the DCP said. He was taken to Deen Dayal Upadhyay from where his relatives moved him to another private hospital.

At the accident spot on Friday afternoon, glass shards, a damaged fence, crushed hedges and some broken parts of the car were the only visible reminders of the accident.

“The safety air bags saved the occupants from more damage, but the bags were torn and deflated when we reached the scene,” said another police investigator.

While both men received serious head injuries, Vijay fractured his collar bone. “Anuj regained consciousness sometime after the accident and told us that both of them were drunk. But both remained critical as of Friday evening,” the DCP said.

Police have restricted the use of alcometers to checking drink driving on the streets since the lockdown in March and only stopping visibly drunk drivers on the road.