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STOP violating the zebra...........Ashutosh Shukla
Civic body, traffic dept have decided to rein in the indisciplined city motorists
There was a time — till say even a decade back — when zebra crossing was sacrosanct. Very rarely would a motorist or a biker dare to encroach on the black-and-white lines, which should ideally be reserved for pedestrians.
Time has a-changed. The respect for the foot soldiers has disappeared and the motorists brazenly bringing their vehicles to halt on the zebra crossing has become the norm. Now, both the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the traffic department plan to put a stop to the indiscipline...bring back the good old days. They plan to paint stretches at the signal before the zebra crossing with letters S-T-O-P so that vehicles do not pass over the sign and jump on to the zebra crossing. “The idea is to bring some vehicular discipline. Most of the times we see that rights of pedestrians to walk on the zebra crossing is taken away as vehicles do not stop at the right spot,” said P V Desai, deputy chief engineer for Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP) at BMC. Said Sanjay Barve, joint commissioner (traffic), “This is part on an ongoing effort to improve the traffic discipline. Some of this work is just re-doing the signs that got erased in monsoon. We feel that there will be better management of vehicular traffic in some ways.” Also on the anvil is ‘ghost islands’ near signalposts that have right turn or U-turn on arterial roads. These will come 100 m before the signal with white and yellow paint on the ground on the rightmost lane of the road. The intention is to remind a vehicle owner on the right end to leave the lane in advance and get to the next lane if he plans to go straight on the road. “People have the habit of keeping their cars on the wrong lane. They then take a sharp turn if they have to take a right or U-turn or some go straight from the wrong lane. This in turn slows the traffic or creates a problem of an accident. This should remind them in advance that they need not block the traffic if they do not want to take the right turn or indulge in lane-cutting closer to the signal,” said Desai. CCTV cameras will be put up so that will movements of the cars are kept under scanner at the proposed ghost islands. The work on them is expected to start from October onwards and hoped to be completed within two months. |
