Fatal Secondary Road Accident and Hazard of Fixed Roadside Object

No matter how safe and careful you drive, accident can happen due to other driver's mishap. This phenomenon is described as secondary accident. For example, recently the death of a lorry driver after a gantry fell on him following another accident involving a trailer and a car at the 445th kilometre of the North-South Expressway near Rawang.

As described by The Star Newspaper above, a Proton Wira hit the rear of a trailer causing the trailer to lose control and plough into the divider. The crash uprooted the support of a heavy signboard column, located in the highway median, causing the heavy signboard to fall onto an on-coming lorry travelling on the opposite lane of the highway. The lorry driver died in the accident and the lorry dragged the signboard for about 100 metres. The drivers of the trailer and his passenger only suffered minor injuries.

Thus, the incident started with the carelessness of the proton wira driver which causes the trailer to lost control of his trailer. Unfortunately, a heavy signboard gantry located at the incident eventually causes the death of an unfortunate lorry driver that happened to travel in the opposite direction at the same time.

In traffic engineering, the first principle that should be considered when designing high speed highway facilities is to remove any fixed objects from the road side. There should be a minimum distance provided for the fixed object to be placed and the base of the fixed object should be adequately protected from the on-coming traffic. In case that the fixed object is too close to the roadside, adequate protection system such as by providing guardrail (which is actually a roadside hazard if it is not being design properly) to prevent any out-of-control vehicles from hitting the object.

World Class Traffic Jam

World Class Traffic Jam
Originally uploaded by joiseyshowaa

Typical Traffic jam on a street in Dhaka. Due to the high population density, vehicular traffic travels at a crawling speed to give ways for pedestrian. Pedestrians seem to cross the street all the way along the street and there is no specific location along the road that can be considered as pedestrian crossing.

Pasar Tamu Sri Aman

IMG_3008
Originally uploaded by wanhashim

Pasar Tamu Sri Aman is open everyday. The market is busy almost everyday except for certain days off due to festive season. The market is famous for its natural produce. Next time you drop by Sri Aman, don't forget to visit the Pasar Tamu Sri Aman market.

Toward Sustainable Transportation: Pedestrian Walkways

Soon, there will be a number of pedestrian walkways being completed throughout Kuala Lumpur. The initiatives is under the Urban Public Transport (UPT), National Key Results Areas (NKRA) which is a a joint effort between Prasarana and Kuala Lumpur City Hall. Hope that in the future, more pedestrian walkways should be provided in order to encourage walking and thus contributing toward sustainable transportation. The selection of the location for pedestrian walkways must be carried out systematically in order to capture the areas with high pedestrian volumes.

The covered walkway projects are as follows:

From Pasar Seni LRT station to the Central Market.

From Pasar Seni LRT station to KTM Komuter station with an elevated walkway.

From Bandaraya LRT station to the City Hall building in Jalan Raja Laut.

From Hang Tuah LRT station to the Monorail station and the Masjid Al-Bukhary.

From Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC) LRT station to The Mall and Hentian Putra.

From Plaza Rakyat LRT station to Pudu Raya bus terminal and the Cahaya Suria and Maybank buildings.

From Medan Tuanku Monorail station to the Maju Junction Mall and the Sultan Ismail LRT station.

Covered at-grade and elevated walkways connecting LRT and Monorail stations to key buildings and areas in the city

For further info, read HERE.

Gotthard Base Tunnel

The new Gotthard Base Tunnel located underneath the Alps in Switzerland is now the world's longest tunnel. Before this Japan's Seikan Tunnel is the longest tunnel in the world. The tunnelling project started in the 40's by engineer Eduard Gruner and recently, Swiss engineers smashed through the last stretch of rock. Overall, it took them almost 60 years to dig through the 35.4-mile (57 - Kilometer) long tunnel.

The Gotthard Base Tunnel will add to the high-speed transportation network covering all angles of Europe. The high-speed rail will carry millions of goods cutting through the Alps thus reducing the environmental damage that heavy trucks inflicted on the Switzerland's Alpine highland.

The Gotthard Base Tunnel will create a high-speed transportation link which is economically important link between the Dutch port of Rotterdam and Italy's Mediterranean port of Genoa.

Thus, Europeans are willing to spend so much money on building a new high-speed transportation link because they know that the link is vital to their continuous growth in economy which will benefit them in the future.

Read further story HERE.