Surat: Four men travelling from Mumbai to Shankheshwar were killed on Friday when their SUV struck a stationary dumper truck parked in the emergency lane of the Bharatmala Expressway near Dhatva village in Surat district, police said.The accident occurred within the jurisdiction of Kamrej police station.The deceased are Rajiv Jain, 47, Jayantilal Doshi, 54, Pravin Jain, 43, and Sanjay Bafna, 47. They were travelling towards Ahmedabad from Mumbai and were headed to Shankheshwar in Patan district.According to investigators, the SUV first hit a roadside barrier before crashing into a dumper truck parked in the emergency lane of the expressway.Police suspect the driver may have been attempting to overtake another vehicle or may have lost control of the SUV, leading to the initial impact with the railing.The force of the collision left all four occupants of the SUV dead.The dumper driver told police that he had stopped the vehicle after it developed a technical problem.According to his statement, on suffering mechanical issues with his truck he contacted a person for assistance and was advised to make certain adjustments, after which he parked the vehicle in the emergency lane.Police said they are verifying the driver’s account and examining the circumstances under which the dumper was parked at the spot.Investigators are also examining whether adequate precaution were in place to alert approaching motorists to the stationary vehicle.The bodies were sent for postmortems at Kamrej as part of the investigation.
