 |
|||||||
 www.punescoop.com |
|
|
|||||
|
|||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
Police flayed for traffic violationsBy rajesh, Section Roads in Pune
Pune: The failure of the traffic police to control the rising lawlessness on city roads has come under heavy criticism from activists and experts.
While deputy commissioner of police (traffic), Mahesh Ghurye, on Tuesday blamed the widespread traffic violations on acute shortage of manpower, activists said that even the existing force was not being stern with violators. Ghurye had said that, while the strength of the traffic police had remained static at 500, given the sharp increase in the number of vehicles and the expansion of the city, the traffic police branch needed an additional 1,000 personnel to enforce traffic discipline effectively. "Leave aside the people's disregard for traffic rules, what are these 500 police personnel doing on the roads," Dattatrey Ghule -- a member of the Pune city traffic improvement committee (set up by former deputy commissioner of police Ravindra Sengaonkar) -- asked while speaking to TOI. Had they been strict and effective in enforcing the rules, the traffic situation would not have been as worse as it is now, Ghule said. He noted that easy availability of driving licences and lack of road sense was adding to the problem. Earlier this week, Traffic Watch -- a group of youth volunteers from the Centre for Youth Development and Activities (CYDA) -- conducted a survey recently, which revealed over 3,000 traffic violations, such as stopping on the zebra crossing and jumping red signals, in a span of eight hours at the busy Balgandharva chowk.
Founder member of Pune traffic and transportation forum (PTTF), Sujit Patwardhan, who agreed with Ghule, said, "In Mumbai, the motorists are in constant apprehension that they could be hauled up for traffic violations, but that kind of fear is totally missing in city drivers."
Traffic management activist Chandmal Parmar said, "The traffic police officials can't shy away from their responsibilities by simply saying they are understaffed". "Why do you think motorists have developed the `I don't care' attitude and show utter disregard for rules," he asked and added that the police should be held responsible for the total breakdown. "The traffic police and the RTO are just doing nothing," he bemoaned. Seventy-year-old S.K. Sen -- a resident of Senapati Bapat road -- who called up this newspaper after reading the TOI reports on Pune's growing traffic woes, said, "I go for my morning walk to the university campus everyday. So many times, I've seen people jumping red signals and breaking rules, despite the presence of policemen at the university chowk." Sen, who once walked up to a policeman to ask why no action was being taken against the errant drivers, was shocked when one of the policeman, displaying complete apathy, said, "Jane do, kya pharak padta hain (Forget it, what difference does it?" Parmar urged for a strict action by the police, failing which, he said the situation will only worsen. Patwardhan called for a holistic approach to address the issue through better public transport, discouraging use of personal vehicles and higher parking charges. Anil Jayabhaye, a research assistant in the sociology department with the University of Pune, said the problem of traffic violation stood compounded as there are no strict provisions to punish the erring drivers. "The fine of Rs 50-100 is negligible. Lack of stern punishment is provoking drivers to flout rules."
Professor Shruti Tambe from the university's sociology department said that civic sense of our people had not yet developed unlike what is seen in western countries. *In 2005, the city recorded 2003 cases of road accidents, claiming 405 lives and injuring 1,721. In 2003, 1,803 road accidents were reported, which claimed 324 lives and seriously injured 207. The last one-and-a-half year has seen more than one life being lost to road accidents everyday *Number of two-wheelers increased by 40,000 in 2005-06 as compared to the growth rate in 2001-04 *Number of cars has doubled from the annual growth rate of 11,000 during 2001-04 to 21,000 during 2005-06
*Number of vehicles has grown from 9.02 lakh (including 6.65 lakh two-wheelers) on March 31, 2001, to 13.53 lakh (including 10.18 lakh two-wheelers) on March 31, 2006.
Police flayed for traffic violations | 0 comments ( topical, 0 hidden)
|
