It seems as though ever since it opened in late 2010, the Yangon-Mandalay highway has seen an accident almost every day, even leading many to deem it the ‘death highway’.
Unfortunately, according to an officer from the highway police unit who spoke to The Voice, the numbers are higher than that. In 2016, a total of 744 rollovers, 167 deaths, and 1317 injuries took place on the highway — that’s approximately two accidents per day.
“If we examine all the incidents that took place last year, vehicle rollover due to speeding was the number one cause of accidents. Machine failure and flat tires were also another major problem, and were responsible for 197 accidents,” he said.
The highest number of accidents took place in July and August.
Instead of calling it a myan lan (highway), some citizens refer to it as ma pyan lan (the road of no return). Due to the high number of deaths that have occurred on the highway, many also believe that the road is haunted.
Although police are trying to reduce the number of casualties by regularly patrolling the highway and attempting to catch speeding vehicles, it seems their efforts are making little difference. At just 4 am this morning, a car drove into a tree on the side of the road, resulting in one fatality.
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