Barely a week after 32-year-old Mohammad Yunus died after falling off his bike while trying to avoid a pothole in Chennai, a man and woman were seen narrowly escaping a similar mishap. A frightening video from the Otteri neighbourhood of Chennai shows a man seemingly trying to stop his bike on the side of the road, with a woman riding pillion, when he appears to have stepped into a rainwater-filled pothole. With a government city bus passing by on their right just as they lost balance, both of them fell off the bike, hitting the side of the bus. The woman narrowly escaped being run over by the rear wheel of the bus.
The 29C bus, which plies between Perambur and Besant Nagar, came to an immediate halt, but only after the woman grazed the side of the bus and the rear wheel, before falling down on the road. The incident happened on the morning of Tuesday, November 9.
It was only last week, on November 1, that Mohammad Yunus, a techie, died because of a pothole on the arterial Anna Salai in Chennai’s Saidapet area. Yunus was riding his bike to work around 8.45 am, when his bike hit a pothole and he lost his balance. The bike started veering towards a city bus on his left and ended up skidding. Yunus was crushed to death by the rear wheel of the bus. Yunus was wearing a helmet at the time of the accident.
Couple narrowly escapes death due potholes in Otteri, Chennai.
— Mugilan Chandrakumar (@Mugilan__C) November 9, 2021
Women, who was riding pillion narrowly escaped from coming under a passing government bus. pic.twitter.com/7ebwueqCI4
The pothole on Anna Salai, which was reportedly caused due to rains, was covered a day after Yunus’s death by the Tamil Nadu Highways Department. Although Yunus fell under the bus because of the pothole, the driver of the bus, Thevaraja, was arrested by the police after being booked under the IPC (Indian Penal Code) and Motor Vehicles Act for causing death due to negligence and rash driving.
In a similar incident, a 35-year-old woman named Devi died in 2019 on the Poonamallee High Road in Chennai because of a pothole. She was riding pillion when her husband applied sudden brakes to avoid hitting a pothole. Devi fell off the vehicle and was crushed under the wheels of a container truck.