The spree of fatal accidents involving private buses during the past one month and a half and recurring incidents of reckless driving have caught the traffic police and the Motor Vehicles Department (MVD) on the wrong foot.
A senior traffic police officer said what began with a private bus ramming 14 vehicles on Foreshore Road in mid-November, reportedly due to brake failure, was followed by a spree of major accidents. They included a private bus which was overtaking another vehicle and was fully on the wrong side ramming a two-wheeler, resulting in the death of a young man and a woman pillion rider at Vypeen a month ago. This was followed by a couple of deaths in the city suburbs, after buses took off even as passengers were entering or disembarking them.
On their part, bus operators confided that a section of them was turning a blind eye to gross rule violations, which included rash driving and halting of buses on the middle of the road to collect passengers. “They seem to forget that reckless driving worsens wear and tear and also considerably lessens fuel efficiency, while at the same time creating a negative image among passengers and other road users,” said an office-bearer of a prominent bus operators’ association.
Both traffic police and MVD officials said they were hamstrung during the past week, since officials had to be taken off regular duty and deployed for VVIP visits to the city. Even otherwise, there is little coordination between the police and the MVD in bringing erring drivers to book, it is learnt.
Both the departments are, in the meantime, devising measures to rein in private buses that flout road safety norms, sources said.
A senior traffic police official said they had begun detaining buses involved in gross rule violations at the police station concerned for a day or two, since imposing fines had not been a deterrent. “This is because the fine amounts are quite minimal. We have also resumed the practice of posting personnel in mufti, to record incidents of rash driving and other rule violations which impact public safety. We hope they act as a deterrent,” he added.
Special drives aimed at nabbing buses that frequently violate traffic rules will resume in a week, said a senior MVD official. “We could enforce rules better if the police share feeds from their surveillance cameras, which include those from the Intelligent Traffic Monitoring System of Cochin Smart Mission Limited that is manner by police personnel,” the official said.