BENGALURU: Despite a law and sustained campaigns by the Bengaluru traffic police, riding two-wheelers without helmet is the most fined offence on city roads.
This was highlighted at a round table discussion organised on Wednesday in the city by the Institute of Public Health (IPH) with the support of AXA Business services, under the banner of ‘Safer Roads Bengaluru’ initiative.
The discussion was organised to discuss the issues pertaining to the selected stretch of roads, Hebbal to K.R. Puram, to chalk out effective interventions possible to improve practices and make this road safer.
Dr Pragati Hebbar from Safer Roads Bengaluru initiative told Deccan Chronicle, “We had selected Hebbal-K.R. Puram stretch of road for our study, as this is one of the major crash-prone stretches in the city. Our main aim of the study is to understand the problems in this selected stretch of crash-prone tailor effective interventions seeking opinions from all categories of road users. This study was conducted in the month of January and preliminary analysis of the data reveal issues related to safe driving practices, awareness about road safety laws, driving without licences to name a few. The findings of this study and inputs from our roundtable will help tailor interventions to effectively bring about change in the coming years.”
This roundtable meeting also witnessed the participation of individuals from various fields, including road users especially on this stretch, government officials, educational institutes, public health experts and road safety experts giving their inputs and suggestions to develop effective interventions.
This baseline survey interacted with 1,175 respondents. Riding without helmets was reported to be the most commonly observed violation. The study says that 66% of individuals stated that they were aware of road safety laws, only 29% knew the correct fine amounts and only 9% knew the permissible blood alcohol level. Around 30% of the sample claim they have been driving without a valid licence for the past three months.
It also said that around 72 lakh vehicles are currently registered in Bengaluru and the number of new vehicles is constantly increasing. The slow infrastructure development to cater to this large number of vehicles adds to the traffic congestion, they added.
