Bengaluru: As with 2016, wrong parking has again topped the list of traffic violations in 2017 with 20.31 lakh cases registered by the Bengaluru traffic police. According to the data on the city traffic police's website, Bengaluru had a vehicle population of 70.28 lakh as of July 2017 and the highest law infringement was for illegal parking.
The other violations that followed in the list were riding without helmet with 19.05 lakh cases and pillion riders without helmets with 15.94 lakh cases. But the least number of violations were for the use of horns at prohibited places with only 552 cases and for freewheeling with 147 cases, according to the data collected till November 2017 by the Bengaluru Traffic Police (BTP).
Talking to Deccan Chronicle on abrupt towing and vehicles violating parking norms, Shiva Kumar, DCP, Traffic (West), said that space is a problem in the city and people are left with no option but to park their vehicles in no-parking zones. "Separate parking space has to be provided to avoid the problem. If not, this will continue," he said.
Though there has been a drastic drop in the wrong parking violation from 91.79 lakh last year to 20.31 lakh, it still accounts for the maximum traffic violation in the city.
M.N. Sreehari, a traffic expert, said, "Why are people burdened with cases and fines unnecessarily? People are paying taxes and the government is not giving them free and convenient roads. The corporation is enjoying the money by creating unnecessary parking spaces on pavements. First of all, roadside parking has to be removed. Every ward has enough space in the city, why can't they identify and build a multilevel parking lots."
He pointed out that this is going to be a major problem in the coming days. "On December 20, at a meeting held with the Secretary of Transport Department, central government, I discussed this issue and brought it to his notice," he said.
R. Hithendra, Additional Commissioner of Traffic, said, "The vehicle pollution in the city is on the rise and only 3-4 hours in a day the vehicle are being used, rest of the time they have to park somewhere. Now, there isn't enough parking space for people near their offices and that is the reason the number of illegal parking cases are high."
