Citizen moves HC over deteriorating traffic

Nagpur: Fed up with deteriorating traffic on city roads, Anjan Chatterjee, retired additional director general, Geological Survey of India, has approached the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court. He has made commissioner of police K Venkatesh, transport commissioner Praveen Gedam, special inspector general of police (Nagpur rural), municipal commissioner Shravan Hardikar, and all the three RTOs in the city as respondents. HC has issued notices to the respondents.
Chatterjee pleaded that the city roads had become extremely unsafe due to rash and negligent driving, over-speeding, cutting lanes by motorists and this affected traffic. Law abiding traffic users were falling victims, the PIL stated. He also mentioned that traffic signals on city roads were not synchronized. Synchronization of traffic signals not only saved precious fuel, time, curbed pollution due to engine idling and prevented signal jumping, his petition stated.
The petition also said seating in excess of stipulated capacity of motor vehicles and overloading, especially vehicles in commercial use, were rampant. Many enter the city from rural areas. Two wheelers with three or more passengers were also common. Children seated on fuel tanks of motor cycles, standing on footboard of scooters acted as human shields for the driver and co-passengers had become very common due to negligent attitude of enforcement agencies, he said.
Another grave violation was driving on wrong side. Chatterjee sought a check on illegal parking, double parking and removal of street encroachments for clearer and better carriageways. Law abiding traffic users were taken by surprise by a vehicle driven from wrong side. Traffic was thrown out of gear due to encroachments and illegally parked vehicles, he said.
Flyover regulations too were not being followed sensu stricto — heavy vehicles sometimes gained entry on them. He underscored the need to prevent flyovers from becoming death traps. Road dividers and CCTV cameras needed to be fitted on flyovers, he added.
Stray dogs and cattle menace was unabated on city roads. Shockingly, the NMC, one of the respondents, had only one vehicle to impound strays and was understaffed for Nagpur city. Chatterjee sought directions to the authorities to invoke relevant sections of IPC against owners of stray animals loitering in public places, apart from other provisions.
Other issues that Chatterjee highlighted in his PIL included encroachments on footpaths that forced pedestrians to walk on roads, indiscriminate digging of roads at many locations without erecting proper and visible caution notices and signboards, dazzling headlights of motor vehicles during darkness creating vision problems for one and all, especially senior citizens.
PRAYER TO COURT
* Measures needed to enforce laws for compulsory use of helmets by two-wheeler riders and seat belts by car drivers, curb dangerous and drunk driving, rash and negligent driving, over-speeding, synchronize traffic signals, curb seating in excess of rated seating capacity of motor vehicles
* Measures to enforce laws to curb driving wrong side, illegal parking, remove encroachments for better carriageway, educate about importance of amber blinking traffic lights through wide publicity, make city flyovers safe and check stray dog and cattle menace on streets
* Suitable measures to enforce laws on fitment of speed governors for older transport vehicles , resolve woes of pedestrians, check indiscriminate digging of city roads, book offenders using dazzling headlights, check use of mobiles while driving and usage of 100 beat marshals on bikes to curb traffic offences