Seat belts optional in Bangalore?

since the average driving speed in bangalore is not so high , i think the traffic police have not made Seat belt mandatory yet.

i checked the delhi traffic website and it mentions seat belt and consequences of not wearing the same.  however BTP site does not mention about seat belt.

http://www.delhitrafficpolice.nic.in/seat-belt.htm

http://www.bangaloretrafficpolice.gov.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=77&btp=77

Incidentally this post has come up when the seat belt videos are making rounds on FB..here are the two links..must watch..abs..ebd etc wont help..seatbelts will!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kYqjTA_VEg&feature=fvst 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-8PBx7isoM

It seems that it all depends on quarterly or montly revenue generation of the police Dept. Its true, you see many times, police just come up, stand at a few signals and start catching the vehicles crossing signals, where were they everyday? They start checking for speed violations also suddenly, where were they on any other day, I mean, people are really not in fear of caught by police while driving rash or whatever. A few peole who got caught in those 1-2 days, a few of those few take care next time that's all.

On the ORR, many times I have seen HAL police standing near Cisco office service lane or next signal to that towards marathahalli catching a few vechicles crossing red or driving fast. So, i feel, whenever they feel they have funds getting less, they just come, challan a few and done. There are already enough of other offences they can catch hold of the bangalore drivers like DL, RC book, insurance, pollution cert, rash driving, signal. Before coming to seat belt, any other offence is anyways proved and can be challaned.

I have seen at many signals, they are just standing and looking for people crossing the red, but at the same signals, they can't see any other irregularities happening, like Land interchange at the last point etc. I mean, as I stated earlier in many posts also, that enforcing lane system at signals atleast is very important and can be done just by enforcing people to go in the same lane they are standing at the signals. This means that if a vehicle is standing in the leftmost lane (because this was the empty lan) should be enforced to turn left as soon as the left turn gets GREEN, he shouldn't be allowed to go straight or turn right blocking other vehicles. No need to challan him, just enforce the lane rule on the driver according to which lane he is standing, that;s all, work done, rule enforced without any fine. Next time, people will automatically take care.

Same kind of things happen at the U-Turns, ideally only the rightmost lane should be queued up for the u-turn, but I see many times, many vehicles (specially cabes) come in the 2nd lane (from right) also and block the other straight going people on the road.

Deepak

I don't understand the govt authorities (BBMP, BDA or traffic police), they can't enforce the rules and can't properly use the resources they have, I mean the current roads and their width, but they want to go ahead and cut the trees, thereby reducing the green cover in the name of development. As Ramesh pointed out that a 2-minute walk on any road will give you an idea what's happening on the roads. You can see multiple cars parked under the sign of "No-Parking" board. People think that as a parking sign may be, not sure though, otherwise how come they have got the license, and anyways, getting a license doesn't need you to know the rules anyways, you just need to bribe some money.

Would a simple naked eye test would throw up these

• Seat belt?
• Using cell phones while driving?
• Kannada only number plates?
• Overly polluting autos?

There would be more easy-to-spot violations, but 5 minutes spent at any junction can throw up 2 violations of above.

While Traffic Police (and Mr. Praveen Sood) have done some good things - enforcement levels have increased over last 2-3 years, numbers say that - but they have still been doing the "EASY" stuff. May be the approach is to go after low hanging fruits first.

Technology based enforcement from the luxury of a control room, even more convenience for 'us', the violators, of paying up the fines via credit card - all these are good things.

But - that vital thing - "the FEAR" of police is DEFINITELY not there. People overtake police cars on Ring Road, drive on the wrong side of roads right in front of traffic cops, drive past right under the stretched hand of cop screaming stop stop.

The "act" of issuing a ticket is important, traffic police forgets that. This "act" has to be "witnessed" by other wannabe violators. A random unplanned catching of a wrong side driver, and fining him in broad daylight, twice or thrice a week is worth 20 minutes of a cops time a week. NOBODY expects every violator to be ticketed.

But now, instead of "visible" expamples, tickets are mostly coming in the mail. And you pay via credit card. To hell with "the fear factor", and the "inconvenience as a deterrant".

The legal Speed limit within the city is 40kmph.

Since this is not implemented all other problems due to overspeeding, speed humps, pedestrians crossing the roads etc. result.

All roads within the city should be designed and constructed to suit the statutory speed limit of 40kmph and enforced by Traffic police, which will definitely bring down the accident rate.

K.V.Pathy