Lane discipline project on J C Road

Police, corporates make way for lane discipline

The ‘Lane Discipline Project’ will be first implemented on J C Road where violating lane discipline will cost you Rs 100.

BANGALORE, Deccan Herald

If you are one of those who jumps lanes on J C Road to pick up speed, think twice.

If you do, you will be fined Rs 100 for violating lane discipline. The move comes in the backdrop of the ‘Lane Discipline Project’ jointly launched by the Bangalore City Traffic Police and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in Bangalore on Monday.

Lane disciplining on J C Road (which is a one-way) is being viewed by the corporate world and the police as a step forward in arresting traffic violations and in reducing fatalities on the roads of Bangalore. “About 12-13 lakh traffic violations are recorded in Bangalore City every year and traffic lane indiscipline on the road has been identified as one of the top five violations,” social activist Kalpana Kar said on the occasion.

She added, “The lane discipline project is being implemented on J C Road with a view to bring about an attitudinal change in motorists towards road rage, which is becoming common in Bangalore City.” Quoting statistics furnished by the police on the rising vehicular population vis-a-vis road accident deaths, Ms Kar said, “ about 720 vehicles get registered in Bangalore City every day and the number of people who get killed on the roads is around 820. In fact, road accident deaths have increased from 659 in 2000 to 883 in 2003.” She added that a majority of the accidents was caused due to road indiscipline.

On the implementation of the J C Road project, Ms Kar said gantries and signage installations would be put up by the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike in a fortnight’s time. This apart, distribution of lane discipline books will be taken up in the corporate sector and educational institutions, she said.

CII’s former chairman M Lakshminarayan said there would be automated enforcement on J C Road with the help of simputers given by Encore Software. “Each traffic police officer will be equipped with a printer-attached simputer by which he can penalise the offender on the spot,” Mr Lakshminarayan said.

City Police Commissioner S Mariswamy said traffic policemen have been trained on technical and on ground application of simputers to book traffic violations. “We had tried out a similar disciplining programme on M G Road some time ago, we will also implement the lane disciplining project on Cubbon Road,” he said.

The project has been sponsored by ITC, Mico, Titan, Toyota Kirloskar Motors, Infosys Technologies and Praxair. Minister for Water Resources and Transport Mallikarjuna Kharge was present on the occasion.