Sir,

This is in response to the letter by Raghu on questioning the existence of zebra crossings in the city and ignoring red traffic signals by many vehicle-users (Star of Mysore dated Mar. 22).

As per my observation, vehicle-users are not stopping on red signal because they are not observing (seeing) the traffic signals. Instead many vehicle-users are blindly following the vehicle ahead and violating the red signals, which is happening at many places including at city centre K.R. Circle.

Wherever three road crossings are present on Hunsur road — at Hotel Green, St. Joseph’s school, Valmiki road crossing and Kalamandira — blinking green signal is provided for some time to facilitate the vehicles going straight. However, even after stopping the blinking green signal, many motorists, including KSRTC buses, are not stopping when the green signal is given for vehicles coming from SJCE side, Temple road, Valmiki road and Rangayana side, respectively, to go ahead, causing lot of inconvenience and posing risk to the vehicles coming from these side roads to Hunsur road.

Similar is the situation at K.R. Circle. The frequent mistake being done by almost all drivers coming from Albert Victor Road and Sayyaji Rao Road to K.R. Circle is that they are not observing the traffic signals ahead of them. This applies to all types of vehicles (two-wheelers, cars, KSRTC city services).

Many of the drivers have admitted that they are simply following the vehicle ahead and jumping the signal at this Circle, without bothering the signal given ahead for them or the hand signal given by the Traffic personnel posted there. At least 8-10 vehicles are crossing the zebra line whenever red signal is turned on and this has become quite common.

Providing timers to the green signal may to a certain extent control this type of violations and vehicle-users should be aware of the risk and the problems associated with signal jumping. They should co-operate to have a hassle-free traffic movement on city roads and                                       set an example to residents of other cities.

Installing cameras may not help as many vehicles are removing either front or rear number plates or altering by blocking one or more digits to misguide traffic cops or the registration number is written in too small sized fonts not to get captured by the cameras.

– Dr. S.V.N. Vijayendra, Roopanagar, 23.3.2017

PS: These are my personal observations at K.R. Circle, as a Traffic Warden on duty, and at many locations in the city.