Driver Blames Brake Failure for 4 Akurana Deaths — Do You Buy It?

A cement mixer truck ploughed into traffic at Kurugoda Junction on the Kandy–Matale road on October 19, killing four people, including a 16-year-old girl, and injuring several others. The driver, now remanded until November 3, told police the brakes failed. Investigators are still waiting on the technical report. One side says this is exactly why heavy vehicle fitness checks need to mean something instead of being a rubber stamp — brakes don't fail on a loaded cement truck out of nowhere, something was missed or ignored long before that junction. The other side says drivers get blamed for mechanical faults they can't detect or afford to fix, especially when they don't own the vehicle and have no say over the maintenance budget. If you've driven or maintained a heavy goods vehicle here, how often do fitness certificates actually match the real condition of the brakes? And if you're stuck behind one of these on a hill, do you actually trust it to stop? බඩු ලොරි එකක බ්‍රේක් අයින් වෙනකොට වගකීම කාගෙද - රියදුරුගෙද, හිමිකාරයගෙද?