HOT TOPICS
SPOTLIGHT AGENCIES
Mr Praveen Sood, can we do a Monthly Enforcement Day?
Written By silkboard - 30 April, 2010
Traffic Bangalore Praja suggestion BTP Enforcement
On the lines of Bus Day, where citizen groups and volunteers support BMTC in executing a real on-ground event, will Bengaluru Traffic Police be game to lead us for a "Traffic Enforcement Day"?
In theory, BMTC should treat every day as Bus Day, and traffic police every day as enforcement day. But we know the realities. But then, what could be special in this once a month event? Some possibilities would be:
- Heavy enforcement of one specific rule on this day. For example, June enforcement day would focus on "wrong side driving", July could focus on "parking on corners", August "Right or Left turn only lanes near signals".
- Citizens could play the police on just this one day. Pictures and videos of violations sent in by citizens could be processed on this one day by traffic police
- If citizen-sent pictures and videos can't be used as evidence (due to legal issues etc), we could do a special picture blog site where pictures from enforcement day can be posted. Don't think this would violate any privacy laws, vehicle license plates are not private subjects.
- Citizen groups and volunteers, along with few traffic cops take over one or two crowded signals, and watch for all types of violations, even the small ones for which the cops usually don't have the time. Can pull in celebrities to make this a high profile thing.
Some tricky ones, not sure if doable
- One traffic cop could be awarded the award of the month on this day. Mr Sood can himself pick out the best cop based on departmental stats like most tickets awarded. An ward like this could, besides encouraging hard working cops, also help publicize policing statistics.
- Special phone number setup just for this day where we could call in and report cases of traffic cops asking for bribes
- Live camera on a traffic cop (helmet?), for us to see things from his/her eyes. May be possible to get a TV channel to sponsor such a thing.
Think more, there certainly would be better ideas. But we do need a nice and visible citizen-police interaction thing with lot more real action and less rhetoric. Using this event to spread crisp enforcement messages, one at a time, could lead to some changes in citizen behavior. As we all know, enforcement is our own job as much as traffic police's.
COMMENTS
Naveen - 30 April, 2010 - 12:15
SB,
I think this is a great thought - honking within 100 mtrs of traffic signals must be banned, as already done in Delhi. Besides, some select areas could be targeted for severe enforcement on each enforcement day.
Actually, the traffic load is too much on all the city's roads & because of this, enforcement is extremely difficult, even while traffic keeps getting worse. Mass transport such as Metro /Mono /BRT is the only way out to guarantee sufficient teeth for effective & much needed ruthless enforcement.
It's really disappointing to see promise after promise being made by politicians whenever some elections are due. Inking any blueprint or action for all the pending proposals seems like it might never happen since the house is so divided - we seem to be caught in this "dangerously stable equilibriam", as Dr JP Narayan of Lok Satta mentioned !
silkboard - 5 May, 2010 - 04:25
Will mail this to Mr Sood, and hope for more comments or suggestions on this.
Will also be good to meet traffic police once to get a detailed look-back and report on BTRAC. Will request for that as well, hope ACP will oblige with a meeting.
honking noise level can be toned down and controlled
muni_blr - 5 May, 2010 - 04:52
Honking is something which can be controlled if people participate. To help this, maybe we should have horn settings given by the manufacturers for city and highway as in loud and normal. Needless to say you only use Normal in residential areas most of the times in the city.
I think Volunteers i.e, citizens in all areas with authority to fine would be a fantastic idea.
There should be proper media coverage to make these things taken serious.
Conveyed to Mr Sood - DriveWell Day is on, need help now.
silkboard - 30 May, 2010 - 04:03
When we met Mr Sood earlier this month, we told him about this day. He is game, and we are on to detail it.
Enforcement Day is bit geeky of a name and conveys a different meaning. Will call it Drive Well Day instead.
Did not see many hands of support for this day (going by comments on this post), but nevertheless, will create a project to make this happen. ETA by Tuesday (June 1).
Can be held on the same day as ...
silkboard - 30 April, 2010 - 03:07
Forgot to add that this could be done on the same day as Bus Day, or combined with any existing "days" being observed by traffic police like the No-honk day.
However, this will work out only if Traffic Police would lead and drive us (like how BMTC does for Bus Day). I am sure all of us will be more than happy to start and support this tradition.
PRAJA.IN COMMENT GUIDELINES
Posting Guidelines apply for comments as well. No foul language, hate mongering or personal attacks. If criticizing third person or an authority, you must be fact based, as constructive as possible, and use gentle words. Avoid going off-topic no matter how nice your comment is. Moderators reserve the right to either edit or simply delete comments that don't meet these guidelines. If you are nice enough to realize you violated the guidelines, please save Moderators some time by editing and fixing yourself. Thanks!