Bengaluru: They’re every motorist’s nightmare. Vehicle owners live in constant dread of the city’s notorious tow truckers, who lose no opportunity to quickly take away vehicles at the first sign of illegal parking. Even the traffic department has nicknamed them the ‘evil’ tiger! The tow-men are getting more controversial with every passing day. These private operators, hired by the police themselves, are nothing short of a menace.
Drunk, rude, undisciplined, they behave like rowdies and often don’t even bother to check whether the vehicles they are taking away are properly parked in the parking lot marked by the department. Vehicle owners have expressed outrage and indignation at this unfair treatment and the FB page of the traffic department is flooded with videos of these unscrupulous elements.
Drivers and road users complain that the towing ‘tag’ has turned into a money -spinner for the cops and of course for the towing operators. The latter are the bane of every motorist’s existence – rude, unscrupulous, abusive, threatening, most of them are thugs and rowdies who smell of liquor and spew invective at the slightest provocation.
Citizens allege that many traffic policemen, who man the traffic on city roads and are in charge of towing trucks, are hand-in-glove with these obnoxious elements. Motorists further allege that these tow truckers demand bribes to release their vehicles. When the car owners approach the police station to claim their vehicles, the towing goons get verbally aggressive and threaten them to book false cases against them, damaging their vehicles. At times they even end up in fist fights with vehicle owners!
Who hires these towing operators? What are the rules that the traffic law prescribes? How is the ‘fine’ money being shared by the traffic police department and the contractors? According to the police, if a vehicle is found in a no parking zone, two-wheeler riders have to pay a fine of Rs 300, of which Rs 100 is the parking fine and Rs 200 goes towards the towing charges. The four-wheeler drivers have to pay Rs 100 parking fine and Rs 300 for towing charges. When it comes to towing charges, the money is equally divided between the government and the contractors. The towing operators are hired on a contract basis.
The traffic police are not very sympathetic to the motorists’ woes. “The city motorists have to understand that they cannot park their vehicles according to their own whims and fancies. If they violate the law, a fine will be slapped on them. However, if they do come across problems, like for instance, if the violations which are being imposed against their vehicle are illegal or if a cop is demanding a bribe, they can approach the higher-ups and action will surely be initiated against the erring cop,” said S Girish, DCP traffic (West).
Meanwhile, the motorist denizens of Bengaluru retort that they are not against paying the fines, but the traffic police must ensure that the system is free of corruption and that their vehicles, after being seized are returned without any damage.
“Recently, the department has received a lot of complaints against the towing operators for demanding bribes and for wrongly towing vehicles. Many motorists have approached the authorities about this. The police have taken a note of the issue and are working on it. Soon, the police will introduce reform and ensure that motorists are not being harassed in the name of towing vehicles,” assured DCP traffic (East) C K Baba.
Two encounters of the towing kind
Recently, Hasan Akbar, a motorist was allegedly harassed in Madiwala after the towing truck operators picked up his bike illegally.
When Mr Akbar took a picture of the truck’s licence number, the driver allegedly approached him menacingly and threatened him to put him behind bars. While for Mr Phanikar H P it was not the first time, he ended up paying a fine for no fault of his. The towing operators had allegedly abused, threatened and assaulted the Mr Phanikar when he had gone to collect his bike from Malleshwaram police station recently.
In a similar incident, Siddharth Kumar Sharma was at BDA complex signal when his bike was towed away illegally. Mr Sharma had to run behind the towing vehicle for almost half-a kilometer to find out the whereabouts of his bike. And when finally Mr Sharma got his bike, the traffic policeman asked to pay '300 without giving him any receipts and without any proper response to his queries!
‘Removed two people after getting complaints’
Excerpts from interview with M.A. Saleem, Additional Commissioner of BTP.
Many motorists are unhappy with the BTP for unnecessarily towing away their vehicles. What do you have to say?
Vehicles will be towed away only if they are parked on no parking zones. Cubbon Road is a no parking zone. No parking boards will not be put up at all places. For example, parking is banned on all arterial roads.
What about complaints of police not issuing receipts for fines collected?
In such cases, we conduct general inquires and take action.
There are complaints that those manning the towing vehicles are rude to motorists. What action has been taken?
Last month, we received such complaints and we removed two people manning such vehicles. We act swiftly on such complaints.
There are complaints that many vehicles are bundled into the towing trucks, thereby causing damages to them?
No damage is caused to vehicles as per my knowledge. They just take away the two-wheelers parked on no parking zones.
How many two-wheelers can be loaded on to a towing vehicle?
It depends. Around 12 may be.
