Over Speed!!!! - The Southern Expressway

Before I actually start writing about this, I must first declare as such "I will not criticize, any Sri Lankan infrastructure development project without thinking twice or experiencing it firsthand.......... unless the situation demands otherwise :P" Ok now since I got that out of the way I think you might have realized about now that I’m in fact talking about our Southern Express way extending from Kottowa (Colombo side) to Pinnaduwa in Galle. And I had a go at it myself.

 Since this was a family thing, the car of choice was of course whatever vehicle we had which could hold 6 adults and 2 kids. So the Choice lay in between a Toyota Sai – Hybrid, a BMW 3 Series, and a rundown Nissan Sunny FB 14. And Toyota Sai was the choice, since the BMW was too low ridden to support the weight. 

The Toyota Sai is hybrid slightly more built than the Prius and much much more pleasing to look at. It’s got a 2.4 L engines capable of generating just under 150 horse power. However when combined with the electric motor both are capable of producing up to 190 Horse Power. The suspension in this a Tad firm, a little too firm for my liking even with a load on. There is also a bunch of other features that these things has to make driving more easy and safe for people, but let’s not get distracted and stick to what we set out to talk about.

Since, well we were about to go on a highway that was well "Built in Sri Lanka" (please NOTE the sarcasm) and with a speed limit of 100 kmph, I didn’t mind going in the Sai. "Aright, this'll have to do" I thought looking at the BMW 3 series parked in my uncles garage. I thought this was one of those so called carpeted road with bumps every 10 meters & blah blah blah blah blah. However by the time I reached the highway things weren’t what they seemed.

The southern highway project was started back in December 2006 with the intention of building the highway from Colombo to Galle. But after the opening in 2011 the project started phase two which would build a 35 km extension up to Matara, expected to be opened in 2013. The highway is to be expected to go all the way up to Hambanthota and continue perhaps until Batticaloa. On the other side the highway is to be extended northwards and connected to the Colombo – Kandy and Colombo Katunayake Highways to create a network system. The Kottowa – Pinnaduwa length of the highway has a distance of 104 km between them. 

The usual travel times from Colombo to Galle was + or - 3 hours. The estimated times by Authorities are 1 hour to 1 and a half hour. The actual time it takes in a reliable car……………. ......45 – 50 minutes.

On entering the highway we are given a receipt which contains a barcode when we stop at the toll booth. The process takes just a few seconds and we don’t have to stay in queue for long. I was in the back seat taking into account the scenery when I noticed we were travelling terribly slowly and leaned forward to look into the speedometer and to my surprise we were already doing a 100 kmph and all I was feeling and hearing were a few light bumps and silence. And that’s when I changed my mind. The highway has 2 very wide lanes along with a service lane which is about half the size of the actual lanes made for driving.

These service lanes continue for the distance of the highway, with special bay areas where the police cars/ bikes stay looking to run behind the first fellow who looks like he’s going over 100 kmph. Also in between distances, they are to build services areas which will have restaurants, petrol sheds and repair areas for your cars are still under construction.

It’s an absolute bliss to be driving freely without the disturbances of any motor cycles, three wheelers and buses. I mean you actually don’t have to worry about one of those fellows just jumping across the road from nowhere. It’s just about driving along the straight roads with absolutely no worry at all.

One of the most unmistakable sights along the highway is that the service lanes are pretty much occupied by vehicles most of the way and all these vehicles had 3 things in common.

1.      Almost all were vans, in some cases double cabs

2.      All of them had water running out from under the engine or they simply had their hoods/ front seats raised.

3.      All of those vehicles were older than 10 years

    I think people must really understand that these old vehicles (most probably older than 10 years more by the looks of them) can’t really keep up at speeds of up to 100 kmph. They may probably reach those speeds at high RPM’s (Engines rotations Per Minute) but the problem is you have to each those speeds and keep up for about an hour or so. And that’s where the problem starts. The most common scenario which occurs when the engine is kept at high RPMs too long is that the cooling until hoses blow up, and worse one of the metal pipes will blow and all the engines water will be lost causing the engine temp to sky rocket. If you are lucky, you engine will just heat up to red hot level at which point you have to stop and let it cool down. This is usually due to dirty radiators not allowing air to pass through them properly or a water leak in the cooling system. These cars just aren’t capable of coping up with the new roads.

We started off from Kottawa at exactly 9.35 am Sunday 18^th December and reached Pinnaduwa at exactly 48 minutes later. Keeping to speeds up to around 140 kmph in order to slow down quickly and moving up to speeds of around 170kmph (coz that’s the maximum the Sai could do) when there was a straight. I think if we had the BMW, we could have tried for over 200kmph easily. And we didn’t feel a thing. For all we knew it was like moving at 40 kmph through the streets of Colombo.

The Dangers:

Biggest problem is that there are animals (dogs, lizards, birds) moving across the roads. The biggest problem for them and us is that we are moving too fast to even start braking or for them to get out of the way in time. This of course instinctively forces the driver to shoulder turn (which means you put all your effort into turning the wheel in one direction) and hitting the opposite wall and at speed more that 100 kmph that not to be taken lightly.

Another problem causing scenario is of course tire punctures. This happens usually when a small metal object or rock pierces the tire usually this won’t have any affect at slow speed. But at higher speeds this can be very devastating to certain vehicles. Cars such as the Toyota Axio and Corolla or basically any car which has thin and tall tires are prone to lose control f the tire is punctured because the tire tends to get off the rim causing instability. In the Toyota Sai, it has a wide tire base with a short height. These types of wheels are more stable in the event of a puncture because the drop that the car has to undergo is pretty small, hence more stable.

 Most of the accidents currently occurring on the highway are due the above reasons. As at now there haven’t been the types of accidents you witness in other countries where about 10 or more cars slam into one another. Currently there aren’t enough cars on our highways to cause this type of thing but if people are this much scared of the so called “Accidents” now I have no clue what they will start doing when they witness one of the real accidents.


So people “GIVE IT A BREAK AND ENJOY IT WHILE IT LASTS”