Commendable effort by Traffic Police

23 December 2008 - 9:37am — Ravi_D

Going west on Mysore road past ring road junction, you climb up a fairly steep gradient to get to Nayandahalli bus stop. As usual, where three lanes merge into two you see a bus stop. With busses stopped next to each other, it is almost a perennial traffic jam situation.

Surprisingly around 7pm y'day the drive on this stretch was not as bad as usual. I drove past, took a U turn and came back in amazement to see what was really going on. 2 or 3 traffic policemen were brisk at work. They had set up temporary BTP metallic lane barriers for a distance before the bus stop to segregate and route bus traffic to pass single file in to the bus stand. They had cleared the front of the bus stop from those waiting passengers, autos and cabbies, and were forcefully dragging every bus to follow the lane. Traffic moved much better.

Commendable action indeed.

Around 9:30pm I passed through the same area again. This time I reminded myself to stop and thank the policemen for the good work. But by then everything was back to 'normal' - policemen had disappeared, barriers were not to be seen and three buses had completely blocked the road and I was stuck in the pile of cobweb traffic behind them.

I really wish there is a sustained drive of this kind. Mysore road (and innumerable others too I bet) can handle so much more traffic if such practices were enforced.

Thanks,

Ravi

Comments

low-hanging fruits

murali772 - 23 Dec 2008 - 10:04am

Indeed, it is as simple as that! If the BTP first bothers to harvest these low hanging fruits (and there are so many of them), there will be co-operation from the public also, as compared to when they resort just to gimmickry and revenue-oriented fining drives

Muralidhar Rao

In fact it has always seemed

rs - 24 Dec 2008 - 8:11am

In fact it has always seemed to me, as I have argued elsewhere, that Bangalore's traffic problems are largely one of mis-management rather than volume. There is plenty of space and one does not have to go around cutting trees meaninglessly. In general regulating buses to actually stop in front of the bus stop, making roads all the way to the kerb and making proper footpaths will go a long way in resolving the traffic issues. What I do notice is that when they widen road/kill trees etc. what makes it work is that they make the road properly and not so much that they have widened it.

Coughing Cop!

Ravi_D - 24 Dec 2008 - 9:31am

Looks like this is not a one off thing. When I passed there Y’day evening, I saw the same effort enacted again. You could already see some sense of order. Cabs and Autos were stopping well clear of the bus stop. Buses seemed to shift to the left lane well ahead, in anticipation. Of course the worst of us offenders were still going crazy, with fancy big cars trying to take advantage by driving on the left all the way to the barrier before trying to squeeze right.

I stopped this time to thank the policeman. The young cop with a dust mask on his face started coughing like crazy as soon as he opened it to talk to me. Such a thankless job. He seemed very happy that someone finally said thank you, but was quite busy struggling to get everyone to follow the rules for their own good. BTP seemed to have a plan of sorts. They are apparently trying something similar in Kengeri, and Nayandahalli was the second one in this series. His complaints are all too familiar to us: Bus Passengers jumping onto the road as soon as he turns around. Autos , cabs and two wheelers trying to sneak thru’. Bus drivers not always cooperative, especially the private ones. Cars with their windows closed somehow never notice the cop on the street, even if he is waving his hands and bowing his whistle.

Hope they keep up the good work.

Thanks,

Ravi

Traffic Police manage the peak hour traffic.

psaram42 - 25 Dec 2008 - 2:27pm

True. We notice the same at Indiranagar too. Non peak hours are not that bad. At really low traffic hours there is no real need of traffic police.

As I have noticed, there are no traffic Lights to start with, at a junction, with low traffic density. As and when the traffic increases the police keep adding Traffic lights. As ACP Mr. Praveen Sood mentioned in the last meeting, they have targets for adding new signals from time to time. Traffic police man the junctions with traffic lights as well as those with no traffic lights at peak hours.

Mr. Sood was also mentioning about remote surveillance at these junctions. Perhaps there is a lot of scope in this area. All traffic violations should be recorded; the owner ship of the vehicle established and logged in properly at a safe data base vault. The whole process should be automated so that no manipulation is possible. Appropriate action should be initiated and taken to a logical conclusion against the offenders.

We in Bangalore appear to be complacent about these traffic violations. It is a high time we are jarred awake from this false complacency.

getting no-where

murali772 - 22 Jan 2009 - 12:33pm

Under the caption "Despite early start, Transport dept gets no where", the New Indian Express has reported (page 3, 19th Jan - I am just unable to access the links) that the computerisation process in the dept has come to a grinding halt. As of today, only 9 out of the 56 RTOs in the state have been computerised.

According to the Commissioner for Transport and Road Safety, Mr Bhaskar Rao, the state cabinet had recently approved the tender for a smart card project. "Rose Marta", a Delhi based company has been awarded the contract.

The report adds that "When contacted, a senior official of the dept doubted the credibility of Rose Marta".

Well, need more be said? And, it is this dept that the police depends on to identify the owners of vehicles involved in all kinds of crime.

Muralidhar Rao

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