Dikhyaa Mohanty 
Cars encroaching on NH carriageways in Odisha kill more peopleThe biggest offender, despite the fact that the ‘zero fatality week’ has evolved into a week of horrific road user injuries and fatalities throughout Odisha, has been the incapacity to remove illegal vehicle parking from major national highway carriageways. Eight people lost their lives on Friday when the van they were riding in collided with a stationary truck that was parked on the highway in the Keonjhar district. Two people lost their lives within the next day after their car collided with a stationary truck on NH-16 in the early hours of Saturday morning in the Pahala neighborhood of the capital.
While there are patches of the NH-16 where stores are backed up and buses and trucks are being parked everywhere, there is obviously a lack of agreement among state and federal agencies about how to deal with these problems. In addition, the crisis has been exacerbated by the lack of truck bays and terminals at strategic locations.
The fact that accidents and fatalities involving parked cars have sharply increased indicates the serious risk that illegal vehicle parking on highways poses. A total of 375 accidents involving parked cars occurred in 2022, resulting in 412 fatalities and 325 injuries. Approximately 175 accidents involving parked cars were reported in 2021; these incidents resulted in 187 fatalities and 275 severely injured individuals.
The most vulnerable sections of NH-16 are still in Pahala, Jagatpur, Manguli, and Jajpur, as well as Chhatia (Jajpur), but the state government has not acted with haste. Even though the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is in charge of the NHs, enforcement is primarily handled by state organizations like the transportation department, the police, or local government.
When the employees of Shree Jagannath Expressways Private limited—the company that manages the section of the NH between Baramunda and Chandikhol—went to install metal beam crash barriers recently, the proprietors of rasagola shops in Pahala put up a strong fight. The area in front of the candy stores, which draw car parking, and the main carriageway would have been divided by the crash barriers.
