Police have reported a rise in road accidents during the current spell of wet weather and asked motorists to cut their speed, with motorcyclists and expressway drivers singled out as the highest-risk groups.
Deputy Inspector General of Traffic Control and Road Safety W.P.J. Senadheera said wet roads, poor visibility and dark skies both before and during rainfall were raising the risk of collisions, the Daily Mirror reported at 7.59 p.m. on Monday.
Motorcyclists, and the people they hit
The clearest pattern the DIG describes is a sequence rather than a general warning.
“A significant number of recent accidents have involved motorcycles. In many cases, riders travelling at excessive speeds have lost control of their vehicles while braking on slippery roads. Some of these incidents have resulted in collisions with pedestrians.”
That matters because it identifies the party most often hurt. The rider loses control under braking; the person struck is on foot. Other classes of vehicle have been involved in similar accidents, Senadheera said, and he was specific about expressways, where speeds are highest and standing water is a recognised hazard.
“Please travel at a speed that remains within your control. Motorists should not drive at high speeds when roads are wet and visibility is poor.”
Headlights before the rain, not just during it
The second element of the advice concerns being seen. Senadheera asked motorists to switch on headlights in dark and gloomy conditions, and to use fog lights where a vehicle has them and conditions warrant.
“If visibility is poor, motorists should use their headlights so that they can see other vehicles and ensure that they are visible to those approaching from the front or behind. Several accidents have occurred under such conditions.”
The point he returns to is that the dangerous period begins before the rain does — the dark, overcast interval ahead of a downpour reduces visibility without wetting the road, and drivers do not treat it as hazardous.
Context
The warning lands in the middle of a sustained wet spell. Schools across the island are closed on Tuesday, reservoirs are spilling, and the Disaster Management Centre has recorded one death and more than 10,500 people affected since 23 October. This desk has covered two serious collisions in the same window: the train and school bus at the ungated Koggala crossing, on which DIG Senadheera also briefed reporters on Monday, and a tipper and bus collision at Ahangama.
Not reported
The filing gives no figures. It describes a rise in accidents during the rainy period but publishes no count — no number of collisions, injuries or deaths, no comparison with a dry-weather baseline, and no period over which the increase is measured. Without those, the scale of the rise cannot be assessed from this report.
It does not say which expressways or districts the accidents occurred on, whether any of the motorcycle collisions were fatal, or whether police plan enforcement action such as speed checks rather than advisory messaging.
Ada Derana reported the same briefing, placing it on Monday the 26th and adding that police are paying particular attention to serious accidents in the current conditions. That outlet’s pages have been unreachable to this desk for several weeks and its filing could not be dated directly, so it is named here but not cited as a source.
