Cops to put brakes on drag racers

Cops to put brakes on drag racers

Bangalore police step up vigil on BIA stretch for speed enthusiasts

Santosh Kumar RB. Bangalore

The Bangalore police have decided to put a brake on drag racers on the Bengaluru International Airport (BIA). The BIA stretch will now be off limits for speed freaks because the police will keep a 24X7 vigil on the road from Hebbal flyover till the airport that will be specially monitored during the night hours from Monday onwards.
Moreover, the traffic signals, which are generally switched to 'blinking yellow' during nights, will be switched on and violators will be booked.
"We will deploy traffic policemen at all the junctions on that stretch. The signal timings in the nights will be reduced to a few seconds as there will be lesser vehicles as compared to daytime," assistant commissioner of police Basha Sab (Traffic North West sub division) told DNA.
The stringent measures are, in fact, already in place since Saturday. A traffic police team led by DCP (Traffic west division) Panduranga H Rane conducted a special drive against drag racers on Sunday. The team arrested five riders who were taking advantage of less traffic and wide roads.
In just one hour, between 1am and 2am, the traffic police booked 27 motorists for over-speeding apart from the five arrests it made.
"We know that motorists are not following signals when traffic policemen are not around to man the signals," Basha said, adding that motorists should no longer be complacent about the absence of traffic policemen because from now on they would man the signals without any breaks.
The traffic police have identified four points where rampant drag racing and over-speeding happens. These include, Kodigehalli Gate (Hebbal traffic police), Bagaluru Cross (Yelahanka traffic police), Chikkajala (Chikkajala) and Trumpet Junction (Devanahalli Airport traffic police).
"Students and private company employees take part in such racing," Rane said.
The five arrested drag racers are Sayyed Abu Talib (18) of Richmond Town, Daniel (23) of JC Nagar, Soudh (25) of Bhoopasandra, Soudh Abubkar (20) of Al Ameen College Hostel on OBC Road and Manjunath (22) of Yelahanka Newtown.
"The boys were released on bail and were asked to appear before the court on Monday," said P Jayanthi, inspector, Hebbal traffic police.