Karnataka - Bangalore   

Law & Order

Steps have not been taken to enforce traffic rules and check violation on highways, writes K.V. Subramanya

Needed: traffic wings in rural district

THE NEED to establish a traffic wing in the police stations in Bangalore Rural district has become imminent in view of the increase in the number of road accidents on the highways passing through the district.

Though national and state highways passing through Bangalore Rural district have turned into death traps claiming around 700 lives every year, none of the police stations in the district, except Ramanagaram, have traffic wings.

Accidents have been triggering violence, leading to law and order problems and traffic jams on the highways as it happened on the busy Hosur Road on Thursday after a student was knocked down by a lorry.

Traffic ground to a halt for nearly two hours on Hosur Road and the police lathi-charged and lobbed teargas shells to clear the mob that blocked the highway and threw stones at stranded vehicles.

Many such incidents have been reported from other highways passing through the district.

Highest

Bangalore Rural district accounts for the highest number of fatal road accidents in the State, after Bangalore city.

Hosur Road, Mysore Road, the stretch of National Highway 4 between Nelamangala and Dobbspet, Hoskote-Kolar Road, Devanahalli Road and Nelamangala-Kunigal Road on National Highway 48 are the killer-roads in the district.

According to the police, over-speeding, drunken driving and untrained persons driving trucks are major causes for accidents.

However, no steps have been taken to enforce the traffic rules and check violation on the highways.

Unlike the Bangalore city police, the district police do not have alcoholmeters and speed radar guns for checking drunken driving and over-speeding.

In the absence of an exclusive traffic wing, policemen are finding it difficult to regulate traffic on busy highways.

As shortage of staff and vehicles has affected routine policing, patrolling, beat duties, crime investigation and maintaining law and order, the staff does not accord priority to traffic duties, said a senior police official working in Bangalore Rural district.

On the other hand, the Government is yet to clear the proposed highway patrol scheme.

Setting up of trauma centres on highways has also been delayed.

During the past seven years, the police, in association with other agencies, had planned certain measures to prevent accidents and provide immediate medical aid to the victims.

However, most of these measures are yet to be implemented.

Though buildings have been constructed for housing 40 traffic-aid posts on the highways running through the State, the Government has not posted personnel and provided the necessary facilities, sources told The Hindu.

The immediate need, however, is to put up road medians as they would bring down the incidents of collision.

Around 90 per cent of the accidents are due to overtaking that results in such collisions, they said.

Most of the highways pass through villages. Absence of pedestrian subways and footbridges was thus resulting in the death of pedestrians who suddenly come onto the road, they said.

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