Tamil Nadu   

Madness on roads

LAW &ORDER The death of a school student in a road accident has brought to focus the mad traffic in the city, writes R. Ilangovan

THE CITY traffic has been defying the best brains in the police that try to streamline it. In the past, many such concerted attempts had been made but they disappointingly proved abortive. Medians were erected. Traffic islands were established. Signal lights were erected in junctions. One-ways were introduced. A Police Commissioner even enlisted the services of an expert to study and recommend traffic modifications. But before he could even think of putting them in practice, he was shifted elsewhere. Hence nothing has solved the city's traffic pangs. But police officers insist that lack of responsibility and insensitivity in a majority of the city road users are said to be the prime reasons for the chaotic traffic. They charge that many of these road users impudently break the traffic rules and a few even go to the extreme extent of abusing the policemen on duty.

"These law-breakers are more dangerous than the hardcore criminals themselves," says a police officer. People often drive on the right - a wrong side at a breakneck speed thus causing many a fatal accidents. The crew of a few private town bus operators often jumps the signals. These impudent violators put the lives of those who adhere to the rules and regulations in jeopardy. City Police Commissioner K. Gopalakrishnan in fact is forthright in his views on traffic violations. He says that the Police have been doing their job perfectly well. "We book the crew of the town buses, who flout the rules under the Indian Penal Code and suggest to the Regional Transport Office (RTO) to take further action against the guilty under the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act. But they remain indifferent and mute," he says.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) A. Radhika has also vouchsafed the same. The Police Commissioner further claims that a senior officer in the Government Road Transport Corporation recently requested him to release a bus driver who caused "just a fatal accident."

"See the value of human lives and the insensitivity of these bureaucrats," he says.Police has been taking series of efforts to regulate the traffic. The government has sanctioned Rs. 25 lakh for traffic improvements. "Women constables has been pressed into service in city's roads," he points out. But people should support these efforts. Otherwise the demand for disposable body bags, which police use to remove the bodies of victims from accident sites, will remain high.

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