Last year, the NHAI installed four crash cushions, for the first time ever, following the death industrialist Cyrus Mistry on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway. But, the recent damage to three devices revealed its short-sightedness in dealing with repairs. Officials, who were reluctant to even touch these owing to “high cost”, hurriedly removed the one on the Surya river bridge on Friday, a day after mid-day questioned them about the threat to transporters.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) officials had installed crash attenuator or crash cushion at four spots on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway. The one on the Surya river bridge, where Mistry died in September, was damaged in the wee hours of Thursday. “It got damaged after a mini tempo rammed into it around 2.15 am on Thursday,” said a source. However, no injuries were reported in the accident. A team of highway safety police barricaded the damaged impact attenuator using a warning tape.