Sir,
While there is a lot of news about making Mysuru pedestrian-friendly, removal of footpath encroachments, etc., another area crying for attention is worsening traffic discipline.
With a huge increase in the vehicle population in Mysuru, many vehicles are frequently seen violating traffic rules with impunity. While lane discipline is almost non-existent, the lane markings and pedestrian crossing markings have also literally disappeared from all roads.
Traffic lights are routinely switched off at 9 pm at many intersections, causing huge traffic chaos. Mysuru is a growing city and these old methods cannot be continued.
Only in Mysuru will you find traffic moving straight through, not stopping even at red lights, particularly at T-junctions, posing a huge risk to people entering the main road on a green light.
The presence of Traffic Police is no deterrent. They simply look away or are always on their phones. Traffic lights are installed to reduce the dependence on humans, but in Mysuru, we have both, but still the traffic is in chaos.
I believe the cameras at each traffic junction are only to catch helmetless driving and driving without a seatbelt. It apparently does not capture any other violation, such as jumping red lights.
While the world is talking about AI, I don’t know why connecting the already existing cameras to the red light is so complex. Similarly, while the advanced world implemented sensor-driven traffic lights that change based on traffic flow many decades ago, we still do not have them in our cities.
They are still manually changed by the Traffic Police if they are around. Otherwise, there are sometimes long lines of vehicles, forcing people to get impatient and run red lights.
Traffic light violations should be considered much more severe than helmet and seatbelt violations since they put other road users at huge risk. If drivers drive without a helmet or seatbelt, it is their own decision to assume that risk, but why should other road users be subjected to risk for no fault of their own when vehicles jump red lights?
It has become so bad that last Sunday, at 8.30 am, I was hit by an auto coming from the wrong side near Kukkarahalli Lake after I had crossed more than half the road.
With white-topping work going on, the traffic lights are switched off, the pedestrian crossing has long vanished and there are no Police personnel to control the traffic flow.
I was fortunate that I escaped with only minor visible injuries after falling on the street due to the hit and was lucky to have escaped any other vehicle running over me.
If our Traffic Police do not use these basic technologies available to control traffic violations, it is not far when Mysuru too will become a traffic and pedestrian nightmare.
I appeal to the Traffic Police to pay attention to this problem at the earliest. If there is shortage of funds, they can reach out to various companies and name each junction after the sponsoring firm. They will get the branding and the Police Department will get funds to solve this problem.
Connecting the existing red-light cameras to the red-light is the simplest task, deploying sensors to control traffic flow is a technology in use in the western world for at least 40 years and marking the lanes and pedestrian crossings is the simplest to implement.
—Bhaskar Kalale
Mysuru
9.7.2026
This post was published on July 18, 2026 7:30 pm