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Highway death: Rider with mystery woman ignored police warning
View(s):A police officer told an inquiry into the death of a motorcyclist who had a female pillion rider that the rider ignored warnings and sped along the airport highway and crashed onto a moving car. Sergeant A.B.S. Perera, who was on duty at the Peliyagoda entry point to the airport highway, told Colombo’s City Coroner Ashroff Rumi that after the rider ignored his orders to stop, police officers in motorcycles to gave chase to him as motorcyclists were not allowed to enter the highway.
The victim was identified as Mahadewage Susantha, 39, a resident of Castle Street in Borella and father of three.
During the chase, the motorcyclist had collided with the rear of a moving car and he and the pillion rider were thrown, sergeant Perera said.Sarath Kumara, the driver of the car, said he was travelling at 80-90 kms per hour when the bike struck his vehicle. “The incident took place around 10 pm, somewhere in Wattala. The pillion rider landed on the roof of my car. It took about three minutes for me to pull my car to a side. I saw the rider on the road. He was bleeding,” he said.
Mr. Kumara said he took the woman to the Colombo National Hospital.
The widow of the victim, Chandani Nishanthi, 40, said she did not know who the female pillion rider or where her husband was going that particular night with the woman. The coroner returned a verdict of accidental death. The court also inquired into the deaths of two other motorcyclists in different accidents.
(CS)