The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : No takers yet for lane discipline Law & order

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Saturday, Jan 05, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

No takers yet for lane discipline Law & order

The lane discipline concept suffers from absence of separate lanes on all roads in the city, writes Marri Ramu

The police have introduced innumerable new concepts to streamline traffic flow in the city, the latest one being lane discipline. But attempts to implement the new guidelines did not receive much response with people citing several limitations.

Inability to enforce the concept uniformly all over the city is the first obstacle, some feel. The lane discipline concept suffers from absence of separate lanes on all roads in the city. Except the wide roads like those before the Assembly and Raj Bhavan not many roads are wide enough to earmark lanes for fast moving vehicles.

No clash

The idea is fast moving vehicles should travel on the right side of the road and the remaining on the left. The traffic police hope this would result in smoother and speedier flow of traffic because there would be no clash of vehicles moving at different speeds. But lanes are not marked on many roads in the old city and on other trunk routes due to limited space availability. This creates a situation of a commuter following lane discipline from Nampally to M.J. Market and no lanes to follow from there to Charminar. Inadequate publicity for the concept is another factor.

Except announcement of the guidelines a couple of times at media conferences and distribution of pamphlets, no serious campaign was undertaken. As a result, ambiguity prevails as to who should follow which lane.

Normally, four-wheelers move on the right side of the road. If more than five cars are moving in a stretch of 100 yards the speed naturally comes down prompting those following behind to change to the right side and zoom past. This is everybody’s experience but amounts to violation of the concept advocated by the police.

Confining to a particular lane becomes a tough task while taking turns. A vehicle driver going to Maktha on Raj Bhavan road would turn right near the railway gate.

If it is a slow moving vehicle, it has to travel on the left side and turn right near the gate. This would apparently confuse other vehicle drivers.

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