MUMBAI, Sept. 22 -- In the two-and-a-half years since its inauguration, the Coastal Road has witnessed 12 crashes involving high-end cars which have claimed at least seven lives -- the BMW crash of Sunday morning being the latest tragedy. An imaginative infrastructure project which was supposed to cut short the commute between south Mumbai and the western and northern suburbs, has become a challenge for the traffic police to monitor, as young drivers often pull off late-night stunts or recklessly speed. The 10.58-kilometer signal-free eight-lane section running from the Princess Street Flyover to the Worli end of the Bandra-Worli Sea Link, is akin to what the Marine Drive was once upon a time, or an expressway is today. While the mandated speed limit is 80, which is reduced to 60 or 40 at the Lotus Jetty curve, people are known to speed up to 100 kilometers an hour, observed a traffic cop. Police routinely take action against errant drivers; on September 3 they seized 11 cars and SUVs after a video of the cars racing on the Coastal Road went viral on social media. Sana Khan, a former professor, who took the video said: "We were driving from Kemps Corner towards Churchgate when we saw some luxury cars, including a Lamborghini and BMWs, zooming past, dangerously overtaking our car from the left side." She recorded the act "as the errant drivers were required to be dealt with appropriately". While Khan and others in the car made a lucky escape, over a period of time, many have not been as fortunate and suffered injuries in crashes. One such accident occurred in July 2026, when a speeding Porsche dashed into the divider behind Breach Candy Hospital, and another in September 2025, when a Lamborghini crashed into the divider near Worli after the driver lost control of the vehicle. In March this year, Juhu resident Rushabh Aneja lost control of his BMW and crashed into a side barrier, while a 19- and a 22-year-old were booked in the same month for racing when one of them lost control and rammed into the side of the tunnel. "The signal-free stretch of the Coastal Road offers the drivers a ready opportunity to speed," said a traffic constable. "The entitled kids need to understand that reckless driving costs much more than money," said Worli Residents Association president Viren Shah, who has had to knock at the door of traffic police several times to bring to their notice the issue of speeding on the Coastal Road. "We have to listen to loud noise of speeding through the night. Despite dialling number 100, these kids do not care," he said. Traffic police officers said while the 10-kilometer stretch was designed to ease congestion and cut travel time along Mumbai's western coastline, the recent fatal accidents have highlighted the necessity of adhering to a speed limit and lane discipline on the eight-lane corridor. A BMC officer HT spoke to however said, major curved feeder ramps and loops are already located at specific multi-level junctions at Marine Drive, Amarsons Garden, Breach Candy, Haji Ali, and Worli where warning signs have been placed, telling drivers to lower speed. "While speed limits have been mandated, high-end speed cameras installed on the road detect violations, sending the feed to the traffic police control room, which issues e-challans to the owners of the speeding vehicles," said a traffic police officer, adding that as the stretch is like an expressway in the middle of the city, posting officials there to keep the violators in check is not possible. Rajendra Godse, senior police inspector of Tardeo traffic police chowkie said, "We regularly catch violators such as heavy vehicles and two wheelers trying to enter the Coastal Road. We also watch out for lane-changing violators through CCTVs." Alan Abraham, architect and town planning expert, pointed to a juxtaposition - the road is meant for maintaining high speed but the design with sharp curves at places does not support that. "The BMW crash raises a larger question about how we design roads in cities," he said. "We cannot design only for the ideal driver and then blame human error when something goes wrong. Good urban design anticipates mistakes and uses geometry, speed and the surrounding environment to minimise their consequences." He added that a stop-and-turn junction can provide an opportunity to slow down traffic -- "a principle we have been advocating in the Versova-Bhayandar Coastal Road stretch as well". Mantayya Swami, chief engineer of Coastal Road, has, however, another view. "Rules are there, some do not want to follow, putting themselves and the lives of their loved ones in danger," he said, adding, "cameras and rumblers are fitted according to the Indian Standard (IS) code and warning signs are in place ahead of all curves and yet people speed and race". "If this continues, we may have to install speed breakers in the second phase," he jested....