Once pedestrian-friendly, city roads hostile to walkers
Motorists stray onto zebra crossing near Museum on Thursday.
Thiruvananthapuram: Till five years ago, it was nearly impossible to find a motorist jumping a red signal in Thiruvananthapuram. Times have changed and for worse, say police officials who now slap fines on many for red signal jumping. The once pedestrian-friendly city has become a hostile ramp to walk on as more drivers stop their vehicles on zebra- crossing.
“In Thiruvananthapuram earlier, people never went through one-way on a bylane road with proper median. Now there are several cases,” said traffic CI Satheesh Kumar.
The city police daily book between 200 and 2,000 traffic violation cases, mostly based on CCTV visuals.
“The impact of issuing fine on the spot is better than the challan issued through post. However, there is a tendency among Keralites to gang up and protest when police continuously slap fine by standing at one spot,” he added.
“This is why our city cannot institutionalise the towing away of offenders’ vehicles like in Mumbai and Bengaluru,” said a top official.
As per city police commissioner H. Venkatesh, even a megacity like London has just over 100 wardens to man traffic. Thiruvananthapuram which has around 40,000 junctions also has an equal number of cops but the traffic culture ruins road safety.
As per social worker Deebu Abey John, the population explosion and the habit of justifying traffic offence by putting the blame on lower traffic infrastructure is a problem common to all Indian cities.“A traffic violator is treated in a hostile manner by other citizens in the west. Here, people aspire to imitate a violator and make life easy for themselves,” said John.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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