Road humps to be more visible

Road humps to be more visible

Venkatnag Sobers

Traffic police plan a campaign to educate road users on safety issues

‘Road humps to be only on the main roads’

Speed-breakers to be painted ‘V’ and illuminated

Bangalore: To prevent accidents caused by unscientifically laid and unpainted road humps, the Bangalore traffic police are taking up a massive programme to correct them and install standard signage to indicate such humps.

Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Praveen Sood told The Hindu that a pilot project in the Indiranagar limits under the Traffic East sub-division was being taken up where road humps would be painted and sign boards installed.

Mr. Sood said the density of signboards was low in the city and efforts would be made to increase their numbers. The people had to be educated about traffic rules, he said.

Signboards and road humps would be glazed with reflective materials to make them visible at night.

Mr. Sood said the department until now had put up signboards to prevent drinking and driving. Instead, the department had now decided to put up signboards which would teach people to follow the traffic rules and regulations. “If people are not educated, we can’t expect them to follow rules. It is an effort to introduce Gandhigiri on the road,” said Mr. Sood.

Until the road humps were rectified and signboards were put in place, the department would not take up any new project. The Police Department was placing route indicators at 20 different places in the city and the first one would be on the Cubbon Road by the end of the month.

Speaking to The Hindu, Traffic Engineering and Safety Trainers Chairman M.N. Srihari said the Indian Road Congress (IRC) had given specifications for road humps. These are: Central Height: 10-12 cm; Shape: Parabola; Width: 3.5 metres; Length: same as road width.

The road humps should be painted with ‘V’ shape and illuminated to make it visible for the commuters. The humps should not be more than five metres away from the junction or the intersection. Two signboards, one at 20 to 30 metres and another 10 metres away from the hump should be placed for the commuters to know about the road humps ahead.

Intrusion of tree branches should be prevented. solar cat’s eyes should be installed before the road humps. Generally, the road humps should be on the main roads and not on the cross roads. There was another variety of road humps called “rumble strips”. This is around 5 to 10 strips together. The width of each strip was one foot and the gap between each strip was one foot. This was normally built on main roads.

Third, it advised the Government three years ago to build “high pedestrian crossings” which were three metres wide and flat.