Bengaluru student dies after car-bike collision involving pothole

The site of the accident. Credit: DH Photo

A 22-year-old student riding a motorcycle died after being struck by a car driver in northern Bengaluru’s Yelahanka New Town on Saturday night in what is suspected to be yet another pothole-related death in the city.

The driver is reported to have lost control of the car while negotiating an elongated rainwater-filled pothole on Attur Main Road around 11 pm. The car collided with the oncoming Bajaj Pulsar before flipping several times and eventually turning turtle.

As a result of the crash, the pillion rider, Arshid Sha, suffered fatal head injuries and was later pronounced dead by doctors. His friend, Rahul, 23, who was riding the motorcycle, suffered injuries and is undergoing treatment, according to police.

The driver of the white Volkswagen Polo (bearing registration number KA 50/MA 2520) abandoned the vehicle and fled the scene. Police are searching for him and suspect that he was drunk at the wheel. RTO records show the car is registered in the name of M Abhishek.

Acting on a complaint filed by Arshid’s friend, A Sreerag Sreedharan (22), Yelahanka traffic police booked the car driver as well as BBMP officials from Yelahanka for causing death by negligence.

Police investigations showed that the motorist was driving in a “rash and negligent manner” but did not rule out the pothole angle. The speeding driver was unable to control the car as soon as it encountered the rainwater-filled pothole.

The Assistant Commissioner of Police (Traffic, Northeast) said, “We are investigating different angles — whether it was a case of drink-driving, civic issue, speeding, negligence of the driver, etc.”

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) sought to rely on technicalities to dispute that the accident was caused by the pothole. A senior BBMP official claimed that it was not a pothole. “It’s just a small patch of the road that has sunk in. A water pipeline passes under this road.

The accident spot is at least 10 to 15 metres away from the portion that has sunk in,” the official said. “We believe that the accident had much to do with speeding.”

Another BBMP official expressed confidence that the truth would come out once the police trace the car driver. “The accident occurred in the middle of the night. Locals suspect it’s a case of drunk driving. The truth would have come out by now had the car driver been traced immediately,” the official said.

Yelahanka MLA S R Vishwanath said speeding could be the reason for the accident but did not deny the existence of the “shrunk” portion of the road at the accident spot. “The road was fixed recently. A small portion has shrunk. We wanted to fix it on Monday. Unfortunately, there was an accident before that,” he told DH.

Despite the accident, the BBMP hadn’t filled the pothole until press-time. Sreerag, the complainant in the case, was too traumatised to speak when this newspaper reached out to him.

Arshid hailed from Kerala and was studying in a college in Bengaluru. He lived with friends in Sharadamba Nagar, Jalahalli. He and Rahul were riding home from Attur at the time of the crash.

Previous pothole death

This is the second recorded pothole death in Bengaluru in two weeks. On October 17, a woman pillion rider died after her scooter was struck by a KSRTC bus near Rajajinagar. Her daughter, who was riding the scooter, said she had tried to avoid a pothole when the bus rear-ended the two-wheeler.