Mysore/Mysuru: Police work is often associated with keeping the community safe through crime reduction, investigation and maintaining peace and order. But one facet that touches the community the most is their work in traffic management.

 To devise better and safer road engineering and more effective legislation, improve vehicular safety standards and generate public awareness, the City Police has recognised three Es, namely: education, engineering and enforcement of law and legislation.

This was highlighted during the recent monthly meeting of the Mysore Grahakara Parishat (MGP) that focussed on ‘Traffic violations and its consequences’ where Gangadharaswamy, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) -Traffic, spoke.

Education

 He said that the City Police was running multiple road safety campaigns through different forms of media including video awareness through cinemas and social media, distribution of posters, books on road safety signage and signs; as well as has organised annual Road Safety Week, seminars and exhibitions with the view to raise road safety awareness among the general public.

Engineering

Certain engineering measures are considered essential for adoption to improve road safety — geometry of the road, separation of local traffic, pedestrian facility, etc., which are identified through regular road safety audits.

 Research becomes impertinent to outline the characteristics of roads based on traffic volumes and densities that contribute to road deaths. It is essential to identify hazardous locations, high-risk areas and crash locations to design safer roads, the ACP noted.

Enforcement of laws and legislations

The five main behaviours most likely to result in road traffic injuries are rash driving, not using a helmet, a seat-belt and over-speeding. In fact, road rules will only be obeyed if people believe that not obeying them will result in unwanted outcomes like fines or licence cancellation.

 Also, the penalties should be large enough to discourage people from disobeying the rules. Keeping this in mind, the Parliament passed the amendments to the Motor Vehicle Act, he added.

 “Certain evidence-based measures and strict and appropriate penalties, backed by consistent, sustained enforcement and public education, have been proven to reduce road traffic injuries and fatalities,” he said.

 Due to COVID restrictions, there has been a slight leniency in checking for some time due to the fear of infection, but now the action of enforcement for violations has restarted and any violations would be seriously dealt with, the ACP added.

 Some of the issues that were brought to the fore were roadside fast food vendors at Ramaswamy Circle causing road blockades as customers park vehicles haphazardly, green light timing for signal from Kalamandira side to be increased to allow more vehicles to pass through, zebra crossing painting not done for years together in the absence of which vehicles do not slow down to allow pedestrians to cross.

 Participants also raised the issue of traffic lights not functioning at many junctions, hefty penalties on cattle owners who let out their animals on the roads and restarting of ‘Public Eye app’. Also, the issue of recovery of pending penalties by private agencies to speed up the fine collection was also discussed.

 For any type of traffic complaints, the public can report to Control Room No. 0821- 2418139 or 2418339 or 2418541.

 MGP President Dr. B.V. Shivamurthy, office-bearers and members K.V. Ramanath, S.V. Raghavendra, C.R. Aswathanarayan, Vijayalakshmi Srinivasan, Chaudhary, Bhamy V. Shenoy, Arunkumar Shettar, D.C. Lakshukumar, Venkatesh Kharidi, Rohini Kamath, Seetharam, Janakaraman, Anand Selvam, Harish, Traffic Wardens, Palaksha, Geetha Ganesh, Jayaprakash, Manju and others were present at the meeting.