Illegal road humps may go

Illegal road humps may go
Subhash Chandra NS, Bangalore, DH News Service:

Here is some good news for motorists in Bangalore and elsewhere in the State.

Be prepared to bid farewell to the back-breaking, unauthorised speed breakers.

The Karnataka Lokayukta, which has taken up a study on the impact of these obstacles, is all set to submit to the State government a report recommending doing away with illegal speed breakers that have mushroomed in the City and in other towns.

To arrest the increasing number of accidents triggered by such road humps, the Lokayukta recently took up the matter ‘suo-motu.’ Its study found that most of these speed breakers were illegal and unscientific and had caused several fatal accidents. The enquiry, which began a couple of months ago, was taken up after a meeting with the departments concerned. “We consulted all departments, including the Traffic Police, BBMP, Highway Engineering Departments, Central and State Highway departments, BDA before we took up the matter. We circulated the minutes of the meeting to all the departments concerned and got the feed back from them,” Lokayukta chairman Justice N Santosh Hegde told Deccan Herald.

Final touches

The report is now being given final touches and will be submitted within a couple of weeks, Justice Hegde said. He said most of these humps are illegal and have been put up following demands from the public.

“In Bangalore alone, there are over a 1,000 illegal humps with the situation in other cities not being much different. They were put up because of pressure from people, after some accidents occurred,” he said. Justice Hegde said that as per the norms, no such speed breakers can be put up without the approval of the traffic police. Before putting them up a proper study should be done by the authority concerned .

“All accidents do not take place because of over-speeding. It might be due to negligence of either driver or some one else,” said Lokayukta.

The speed breakers, according to him, can be put up only if the traffic police feel their necessity. But here, non-state actors have been putting up such humps.

Besides, road humps have to be as per specification and standards set down by the Indian Road Congress (IRC) which has fixed the size, height and width.