Change in attitude key to safe roads

CHENNAI: In addition to legal measures such as stepping up the quantum of punishment for violations, attitudinal changes and placing greater premium for values than results is the key to effective enforcement of traffic laws for road safety, Additional Commissioner (Traffic) Sanjay Arora said here on Thursday.Delivering T Muthian Memorial Lecture on ‘Effective enforcement: A key to road safety,’ organised by the Division of Transport Engineering, Anna University, and Federation for Road Safety, the senior police official said 10,000 cases were being registered every day under the Motor Vehicles Act and Rs 7 lakh collected as penalty. “By no means is it a small number, yet violations continue,” he pointed out.Making a powerpoint presentation, the engineer-turned-IPS officer listed a variety of factors — increasing population and vehicular density, poor road infrastructure, lack of parking space, encroachment of carriageways by hawkers, garbage bins and vehicles, developmental activities such as the Metro Rail project, digging of roads for storm water drainage project, MTC bus breakdowns, funeral processions and removal of sewage at peak hours — for compounding the everyday traffic situation.Add to that the culture of competition prevailing among Indians, the officer said. “We have an inbuilt nature of competitiveness. This is because there is greater premium for results than for values. Every motorist wants to be the first to get through,” he rued.Stressing the fact that people must change their attitudes, Arora also called for increased quantum of punishment to violators for effective enforcement of traffic laws. He said the penalty for a single violation under the Motor Vehicles Act was Rs 50, which the motorists paid and got away. “So, I have instructed my men to fine them Rs 1,000 for multiple violations, which will burn a hole in their pockets,” he added.He also pointed to the need to ensure “certainty of punishment” to violators. “Motorists should be aware that they cannot get away with violations and this we hope to ensure through greater use of technology like installation of automated number plate recognition (ANPR) system at traffic junctions,” Arora said.The officer said the onus of following traffic rules rested on society. The duty of the police was to bring to book only a minority of defaulters. “We are also dealing with corruption in the department with a heavy hand,” he added.