Police need more teeth to regulate errant e-vehicles

July 31, 2014

Hindustan Times (Delhi)

Soumya Pillai  

E-RICKSHAWS OFTEN DISOBEY RULES, JUMP TRAFFIC SIGNALS AND DRIVE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF ROAD, RISKING THE LIVES OF COMMUTERS

NEW DELHI: The wait for the regularisation process of e-rickshaws has led to another death in the capital.A two-and-a-half-year-old boy was flung from his mother’s lap into a pot of boiling sugar syrup in east Delhi’s Trilokpuri on Tuesday, after an errant e-rickshaw hit the woman carrying the baby.The incident, traffic cops claimed, was not an isolated one.

According to the data maintained by Delhi Traffic Police, till July 15 this year, e-rickshaws had been involved in more than 36 accidents, which have caused two fatalities. The death of Dev — Tuesday’s victim — has pushed the death toll to three with clamour growing louder for the regularisation of the batterypowered vehicles.

Overloading, not following traffic signals and driving in the wrong direction are some of the offences that these battery operated rickshaws are often guilty of, the traf fic cops claimed.

Earlier in June, an announcement for regularising these threewheeler vehicles had come as relief for the traffic police officers who had to manage these unruly vehicles on the roads which seldom followed rules.

But the delay in execution of these regularisation laws by the corporation has only helped making matters worse.

“We have drafted all rules and regulations to be followed by the e-rickshaw drivers once they come under the corporation’s purview. Soon we will be able to control the accidents caused by these rickshaws,” said a senior official from NDMC.

Known for providing last-mile connectivity, these compact vehicles ply on narrow lanes of congested colonies and often create panic among pedestrians.

In Tuesday’s incident Dev’s mother was taking him for a walk to the nearby market when an an e-rickshaw is said to have come out of nowhere and hit the duo.

Traffic officers corroborated that not obeying traffic signals, carrying more passengers than the vehicle’s designated space and not switching on the headlights at night not only endangered the lives of the passengers in the rickshaws but also pedestrians and other drivers on the road.

 

Source-http://paper.hindustantimes.com/

Project to install high-speed traffic cameras fails to take off

April 16, 2014

Hindustan Times (Delhi)

Subhendu Ray

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Traffic Police had mooted a grand plan of installing speed cameras at the city’s busy intersections to nab motorists flouting rules as well as bringing down the number of fatal accidents on the roads.

SONU MEHTA / HT  -Delhi traffic police want to set up 8 high-speed cameras in two accident prone zones to track and nab offenders.Three years on, however, the plan continues to remain on paper with the traffic police force once again missing the March deadline for implementation of the project.

Sources said in 2012 that the traffic police had come up with a plan to install 70 infrared-based speed cameras at the busy city intersections in order to identify and nab speeding motorists.

The plan, however, was later scrapped as the ministry of home affairs did not approve it.

Later, due to a ‘funds crunch’, the traffic police had scaled down their demand and come up with a fresh plan to instead eight such high-speed cameras and install them at the city’s two accident-prone zones at Kingsway Camp and Aurobindo Marg  by March 2014.

However, the ` 2.25 crore project again got stuck during its technical evaluation phase.

“We had plans to install the cameras by the last financial year but the tender process got stuck during the technical evaluation. The whole process of finalising the bidder may take a few more months,” stated Taj Hassan, special commissioner of police (traffic).

Sources however, claimed that the project this time too failed to take off again due to non-allocation of funds by the ministry.

“With the fund allocated to us, we could only purchase 78 breath analysers in the last financial year,” said a senior traffic police officer.

In 2013, more than 1,700 people were killed in road accidents. During an analysis, traffic police found out that many of them were killed due to speeding. This year also, over 400 people were killed on the roads of the city during the first three months.

The cops also had plans to buy 10 Innova cars mounted with automatic speed violation detection system, which would intercept vehicles speeding beyond permissible limits, both during day and night and in all kinds of weather conditions.

This project too is yet to be cleared.

Source -http://paper.hindustantimes.com/