Kolkata Police will prohibit two-wheelers from using the Chingrighata flyover during rainfall after several motorcycles skidded on the painted road surface, while the police commissioner said there was insufficient evidence to establish that the paint caused the accidents.
Police Commissioner Ajay Nanda said on Thursday that the restriction would apply only when it rains and only to the Chingrighata flyover. The decision follows videos of motorcyclists falling on the rainbow-painted stretch during Wednesday’s rain, which circulated widely on social media.
The West Bengal government has installed road studs and roughened the surface of the flyover after three motorcycles reportedly skidded following rainfall. The changes were made as a precautionary response while questions continued over whether the painted surface had become slippery.
Nanda said experts involved in the painting work had told the police that the material used had anti-skid properties. “There is insufficient evidence to establish that the accidents happened because of the painting,” he said, adding that when the paint was applied over bitumen, it should not cause motorcycle or vehicle wheels to skid.
The commissioner pointed to several other possible factors, including wet road conditions, the sharp bend on the flyover and excessive speed. He also said the motorcyclists may have been attempting to record videos while riding in the rain, which could have affected their balance. These explanations were presented as possible causes, rather than as findings from a publicly cited technical investigation.
The safety response highlights the operational difficulty of managing painted road surfaces on elevated urban corridors during monsoon conditions. A surface that is considered anti-skid under specified conditions may still become a public concern when rain, vehicle speed, road geometry and maintenance conditions combine at a high-risk location. In this case, the police response has focused on restricting a vulnerable category of road users during rainfall rather than closing the flyover entirely.
The Chingrighata flyover’s sharp bend has also been identified by the police as a factor requiring additional caution in wet weather. The restriction is not being extended to the Gariahat flyover, Nanda said, because that structure does not have a comparable sharp bend.
The police have not announced how the restriction will be enforced, how rainfall will be formally determined for operational purposes or whether a further technical assessment of the painted surface will be made public. For now, the immediate measures are the rain-related ban on two-wheelers at Chingrighata, the installation of road studs and the roughening of the flyover surface.
