The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Four-lane system to be extended

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Thursday, Jan 04, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Four-lane system to be extended

L. Srikrishna

Up to Little Mount Junction: First phase to cover Teynampet-Nandanam stretch "Sustained education and cooperation from motorists have made it possible"

CHENNAI : Every year 12 lakh people die in road accidents in the country. With vehicle population steadily rising, road safety activists want the police to enforce road traffic rules more strictly on the one hand and want motorists to adhere to rules on the other, in order to contain fatalities on road.

Two of the major reasons for road accidents and fatalities in Chennai, police say, are drunken driving and the use of mobile phones while driving or while crossing roads or level crossings.

About four months ago, the Chennai City Traffic Police (CCTP) began a campaign to highlight the dangers of talking over mobile phone while driving.

"This yielded good results and a positive response from the road users," according to the police who note that earlier the exercise of imposing fines for drunken driving and over-speeding, carried out regularly, had very little effect on the drivers. "However, this time around the New Year celebrations passed off without any fatal accidents," which was the result of a sustained campaign about the ills of rash driving, police claim.

Talking to The Hindu , Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Sunil Kumar said on Wednesday that the four-lane system, now in vogue in a part of Anna Salai, would be extended up to Little Mount Junction in two phases. The first phase would be from Teynampet to Nandanam.

On the question of lane markings, Mr. Sunil Kumar said the plan now was to use better paints to demarcate the lanes for different types of vehicles. "We are awaiting a communication from the Highways department clearly stating that the stretch would be free from any kind of digging activity, we will go ahead with the lane marking," he added.

Passenger cars would ply in the middle and heavy vehicles and two-wheelers on the extreme left and extreme right lane respectively.

Similarly, there are plans to demarcate lanes from the Padi junction (to the northwest of the Kathipara junction in the south), he added.

Studies by the CCTP showed that wherever people followed the lane system of driving, the fatal accident was minimal, he noted.

During the last three months (October to December 2006), the number of cases booked for

over-speeding had dropped, compared to previous months. "Sustained education and cooperation from motorists had made it possible. We hope to maintain the same trend in the coming year also," Mr Sunil Kumar said.

The CCTP collected Rs 4.70 crore by way of fines from motorists for various kinds of traffic rule violations and in December 2006 alone, the fine amount stood at Rs. 66 lakh.

On their traffic awareness campaign, Mr. Sunil Kumar said college students participated in an awareness programme on East Coast Road a fortnight ago and it helped people understand safety and precautions while crossing this busy stretch.

However, road safety activists want the CCTP to follow global traffic management policies including the use of closed circuit cameras to track down violators.

The system introduced with fanfare about five years ago has failed to make any impact, especially the lack of clear statistics to show that CCTV monitoring can be used to track down offenders in hit-and run accidents.

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