Traffic violations drive Bengaluru cops up the wall

BENGALURU: While the city has seen a decrease in the total number of traffic violations recorded last year compared to the previous year, when it comes to the top four rules broken, the numbers continue to remain high and it seems that the city’s motorists are unwilling to stop breaking these rules. A long time after the rules making the wearing of a helmet compulsory were introduced, this is one of the city’s most commonly observed traffic violation. 

The others are wrong parking, jumping of signals, pillion riders seated without a helmet. Experts say that despite these violations being recorded more frequently than the rest, traffic cops have been unable to curb them. Some of the experts also opined that other commonly observed violations like riding on a footpath, had low numbers in the statistics because the violators were not being caught and fined enough. 

Talking about why motorists in the city still do not prefer to wear a helmet, both rider and pillion, Sanjeev Dyamannavar, an urban expert said, “The helmet issue with both the rider and pillion rider is due to the lack of proper enforcement in the city. At major junctions, the traffic police are strict but in other areas, people hardly wear helmets and many times these are not recorded.”

Dyamannavar also spoke of the need to introduce designated parking spots across the city to help reduce the problem of wrong parking. Last year, 11.44 lakh cases were filed against people for parking in the wrong spot. The city has a total vehicle population of around 75 lakh. “There is no concept of parking in the city as of now. There must be designated areas to park,” Dyamannavar said.

Another interesting aspect pointed out by him was that most of the often repeated violations attracted small penalties except for wrong parking when the vehicle is towed. “Following the law should come as a habit and most drivers risk the lives of others when they break the rules,” he said. 

According to urban expert V Ravichandar, there were several other violations which also deserved the attention of the police but were not prominently featured because there was no mechanism in place to capture them. “As per my observation, footpath riding is the highest violation. We see violations on a regular basis but there is hardly any mechanism to challan them. Technology must come in the picture,” he says hinting that the numbers recorded will quadruple with the help of CCTV cameras.