Park Heavens

This holiday season drive safely

2010-12-15T02:33:00.000-08:00

Year end is here and so is festive season (Christmas is just few days away). We all will have social gatherings of family, friends and co-workers. Fun and holiday cheer will be ruling everywhere. But this also is the time to be a little careful. A lot of people will be out there to attend Parties thus there will be more vehicles on the road. due Higher number of vehicles combined with more people being under the influence of alcohol increases the possibility of mis-happenings. It is that time of the year when we need to practice some extra precaution and drive safely.

Here are a few tips to keep you safe while you are driving this holiday season:

Never drink and drive because it is a dangerous combination. Drinking even in small amounts will affect your judgment.
Decide on one person for every party who will not consume Alcohol. This person can take the responsibility of driving back to home safely.
If you for any reason do not have a person who can be designated as non drinker for the day call a cab or a driver to drop you home safely.
If you are hosting a party don't let your guests drive when they drink. Insist that they stay back at your place.
Driving too fast ain't going to save any time for you. So Don't be monster behind wheel.
Make sure that you and the passengers are wearing seat belts.
Avoid using cell phones.

These tips will ensure that you arrive at your destination without having an accident. It is critical to drive responsibly because you may take every precaution yourself but you have no control on how others drive. Also we should avoid any road rage as far as possible after all road rage does not only cause injury it also spoils all your party fun. Make this season a happy holiday season.

Car Companies should come forward to help improving Delhi Traffic

2010-09-22T12:42:00.000-07:00

Somebody asked me 2 days back to describe the problems I am facing living in India,I just replied expeditiously that “Traffic and Pollution is on top of my list” and I am sure everyone at least who lives in metro city like Delhi must be facing the same. But the biggest problem with us is that we always curse India/Govt. for such issues. And this is wrong it’s not always the govt. to be blamed for, it’s equally “You” and “Me” “We have to stop it by ourselves”. You all may have experienced and seen many times on roads that people like to break the lane system (common form of traffic violation) and I am sure most of us don’t even know what the lane system is. We never hesitate to overtake other vehicles from left side which is illegal. And also sometimes it’s often happened to see on Delhi roads that people block the left turn even when it is free and some fools park their cars just before the red lights which makes that road more congested. It’s just indicating “City lack traffic sense”.

As I always mention in my articles that “Everyone is responsible for road safety so each should be educated by traffic rules and laws” However DTP have already been making efforts for spreading traffic safety materials/tips through organizing various programs, exhibitions, shows etc. But I am amazingly glad to know that our Delhi got a helping hand i.e. a Car Company Hyundai Motor India also helping in this regards and introduced a road safety program in 2006 known as “Hundai Traffic Squad” in association with Delhi Traffic Police (DTP) and Institute of Road Traffic Education. Its primary aim is to infuse awareness of traffic rules and regulations. It is a student traffic volunteer scholarship scheme under which young college and university students are trained and imparted knowledge about signaling, traffic control devices, road laws, types of road users and driving. They help the police in management of traffic for about three hours during peak hours because during these hours people rush to go home can cause pedestrian crashes and also help bus drivers and passengers at the bus stops by preventing overcrowding and jostling while boarding. I really appreciate this idea of Hyundai to educate people about traffic rules and regulations. This will not only make people aware but also enforce them to maintain road discipline by following traffic rules. These efforts may not solve the all problems but somewhere certainly help in improving road safety. Apart from Delhi, Hyundai is further thinking to initiate a similar scheme in other metro cities like Kolkata, Bangalore and Mumbai.

Providing information is a benefit only if it is organized, processed and available in a proper way to the people and the same is what Hyundai is doing. I would suggest like Hyundai other car/automobiles companies (Tata Motors, Maruti Udhyog, Toyota and Hindustan Motors) should also come forward to improve Delhi traffic by promoting traffic awareness for road safety. Organizing road safety programs such as driving training, driver behavior can help in reducing accidents and control driver performance (cause high risk crashes). Books donation can also be a new creative tool to spread info. This in turn can provide a platform to conduct behavioral studies about the drivers which could be useful for new automobile designs. The Advertising mileage is an extra dividend that they get.

Recently 120 university students joined traffic volunteer’s scheme for 2010-11 and will support DTP during Commonwealth Games. It’s primary aim to assist traffic police during peak hours in traffic management and road user education. Walking/driving safely means we are being aware of traffic rules and laws. We should act before the situation becomes grave and we are left to contrite.

Speed limits on our roads and streets

2010-09-01T09:35:00.000-07:00

“Breaking any law usually leads to unpleasant consequences but breaking a law related to speeding can lead to many consequences”Few days ago I saw a shattering news while reading newspaper that a child died after being hit by a car driven by a man who was driving very rashly at the speed of 80 km/h. Did I mention that he was driving in a street in residential area where a speed limit sign was also available? Shocked? even I was. I want to narrate a story that happened in front of my eyes. These three guys in their early twenties were riding a scooter on busy streets. They were at high speed (must be 60 something) and top of their Hooligan self when they crossed me. After a few seconds I watched them skid, fell down and surrounded by public. It took me roughly 2 minutes when I reached near them and saw that they skid because of sudden breaks they had to apply to save kids playing in the street. Yet they stopped only inches away from the kids. Now how safe is this?

What I can not understand is why people drive so fast crossing speed limit? Is it the excitement or impression of being good driver or fear of getting late to work (or to home). Whatever be the reason but the same reasons can put people in danger. So here primary concern is about the safety of the public including the driver from speed causing accidents. We all must understand that vehicles on the roads are allowed to run under a ceiling of speed limit.

However in India the idea and implementation of speed limit looks like an alienated concept. The authorized body has fixed maximum speed limits for different classes of vehicles at a national level like within town it is 50 km/h, for highways it is 80 km/h and there is no limit defined for expressways. The maximum speed limit for rural inner state is 90 Km/h. As speed vary by state and vehicle type so Delhi govt. has also fixed 60 km/h for light motor vehicles like cars/jeep/autorikhshaws etc. and 40 km/h for all heavy motor/transport vehicles including TSRs. According to ASP (Traffic) N S Ahlawat, the idea behind this is to ensure smooth flow of traffic and safety of the pedestrians. Not only this, to regulate the speed of motor vehicles on the roads of NCT of Delhi, Mr. Prabhakar (Deputy Commissioner of Police, Traffic Headquarters) been dictated speed limit of vehicles on the city roads. Know more about these speed limits here. There can be debates on whether these limits are right or not but before that we should abide by these limits.

Well Delhi Traffic Police (DTP) already is enforcing these limits by using cameras integrated with radar devices to snap the picture and license plate info and by putting Speed Limit Signs on the road sides. DTP is also in process of procuring night speed radar guns. These will help to catch motorists for speeding even after sunset, though the same is expected to be introduced only after Commonwealth Games in Delhi. One thing that I have found missing here is proper communication of these limits to the general public. How many of you knew about these limits prior to reading this post. The proper signage need to be put up not only the roads but on major streets as well. The drives for educating the public and enforcing law need to be taken up by the Delhi traffic police. We should not forget the streets when enforcing this law specifically because many such accidents happen on the streets. But above all enforcements we the drivers will have to understand and take the oath to drive sensibly. I would love to hear your input about this.

Paying My Traffic Chalan

2010-08-25T03:40:00.000-07:00

They are right when they say "Nobody is perfect". Everybody makes his own share of mistakes and pays for his own share of penalties. Thus I also paid for mine. Last month while taking my son to the Hospital when I took a right turn from Aurobindo Marg, I was stopped by the traffic policeman. Seemingly I crossed the road the moment when traffic signal just turned Red. Though in my opinion I turned before it turned red but that is a different debate which I had with the constable there. My fate was not on my side as I also could not find the photo copy of my cars insurance policy though it was berried in the papers (you pay when you don't sort your papers). I was slapped with a 1100 Rs. penalty which I had to pay at Patiala House courts.

So this Saturday when I started for Patial House courts I was expecting some time to be wasted during the day. Guys do you wanna take any guess how much time I spent in this process? Well I came out of my parking lot and there I was in the jam at the traffic signal out side the parking lot. It took me 7 minutes to cross this signal and I reached the courts. What amazed me reaching there is that there is no Parking in the courts. On asking a Traffic inspector, outside the courts, about the Parking he told me "there is no parking. You will have to park along the roadside." So be it I found a vacant space and parked my car there (parallel to the footpath). I had to report to the Room No. 20 and this is where a pleasant experience started. My chalan receipt was taken and I was told to wait outside until they call my car number. My turn arrived very soon. The Magistrate (I don't remember his name) was a gentleman. He was patiently listening to what people had to tell. I was ordered to pay Rs. 100 as fine I paid and got my License back. So now if you still haven't guessed the time taken it took me total of 50 minutes right from starting to reaching home. Yes from home to home in 50 minutes flat which includes 7 minutes halt while going and 10 minutes while coming back at the signal right outside the parking lot.

I have written this post to quash out all sorts of images of haggling in the courts. If didn't felt a need to pay any tout to get things done fast and easily, you wont either. I have already told that how gentlemanly and patient was the magistrate. Best part is that the whole process didn't actually take more than 15 minutes. Guess India definitely is progressing towards a better governance system.

No Honk Challenge

2010-08-13T02:52:00.000-07:00

Last year in April I wrote a post "Horn Not Okay Please", where I recommended noise pollution level in Delhi is too high, so we should honk less often. Last week one of my ex-colleagues argued that it is practically impossible to drive in Delhi without honking. Though I suggested

to honk less and not go down to zero but this brought up the thought to test how practical is it to drive in Delhi without Honking at all. Thus I took a "No Honk" challenge.

No Honk challenge means I will be driving to my office (23 Km one way) and back without reaching to that big button in the middle of my steering wheel. This means braving the traffic intensive areas like Badarpur and Kalindi Kunj among others. Do you think it is possible? Some say not possible at all while some other believed it is very much possible. Initially I thought of trying it for one day but later decided to extend it for 1 week. So the challenge started on last Thursday and I'll have to admit that the challenge started with a honk as soon as I started my car (damn this honking habit). But believe me I didn't even look at the horn for even once for the entire day after that. The next day was a bigger challenge I was subjected to the construction related diversions and also Kanwaria (Holy road trip on foot by Lord Shiva devotees) rush. But things till now have gone smoothly. I have driven close to 350 Km and in all have pressed my horn only 5 times. This include 2 times when I honked in parking lot when this guy standing in driveway refused to move and once when I started 10 minutes late but wanted to reach office 10 minutes early (did you read my post "Sure way to avoid traffic on the roads is to start early"). Now I know you would be wondering how many times I reached office late. Any guesses? I reached late to my office in total of 0 times.

I know there are some morons who will just honk because of no rhyme or reason. Some even take responsibility to invent some kind of music out of the noise (read that honking). But for more reasonable ones, I did an analysis for reason which force us to honk. In this No honk drive for a week I was frustrated, on some occasions. Lets talk about that guy who was the reason behind 2 of my 5 honks. In the evening when I reached parking lot, this guy was attending a call on his cellphone standing right in the middle of the driveway totally unaware of the risk he took over his life. God bless such idiots. Same is the case when someone stops in the middle of road, may be coz they wanna count the stars in day light.

A common reason we delhiets face is when the vehicle in lane next to you, overtakes wrongly, switches lanes and jumbles whole lane in order to win the race with an unknown vehicle. Having this bad habit of driving so that they block 2 lanes (or as I say driving in Opportunity Lane) gives them an opportunity to swerve across multiple lanes. I have one more classical case to frustrate drivers. People using a T-Junction as the bus stop and buses obliging them. What you don't believe this? Just see the picture.

So next time when you complain about so much of noise pollution on the roads just be sure that you are not being the reason to add some more. Following are some points I suggest to help Delhi fight this noise pollution.

Be attentive when you are on the roads.
Do not swerve across multiple lanes.
Slow down and look for traffic before you merge in the road coming from a by-lane or street.
Start early to get less frustrated.
Don't be a speed monster behind the wheel.

I have lost the challenge but I have understood 1 thing how much unnecessary honking we all indulge in. But it would be unfair if I don't credit those guys who are considerate and genuinely honk less. My friend @hapharzd is one such guy who called me up and said how much he agrees with honking sensibly and he himself think twice before honking.

Jaywalking on the rise in Delhi

2010-07-11T23:25:00.000-07:00

First of all, I wanna say one thing that “If you know how to break a rule then you must know how not to break it too”. You all must have seen somewhere on the road, people usually cross the road at random locations other than a cross walk or cross the road when a traffic signal tells not to cross, this is commonly called “Jaywalking”. It’s unacceptable and pedestrians are supposed to cross the road/street/highway at the area which is designated for them but some pedestrian still prefer jaywalking, cross wherever they want and whenever they decide. The questions which are popped up in my mind that “Are they fool or too lazy to walk to the nearest crosswalk or don’t care what rules say and not even think of their life?” As it looks so stupid that you are driving and someone can see you driving towards him/her but still start crossing the road, that is really unacceptable. And with such attitude of pedestrians, driving is becoming difficult for motorists.

What they think? Jaywalking isn’t dangerous? Ofcourse it is, because motorists don’t expect jaywalkers to be crossing the road in the middle of the block. Jaywalking is putting pedestrians and motorists equally in danger. Jaywalking is not a criminal offense whereas hitting someone with your car/bike is.

In metro cities like Delhi where pedestrian traffic at it’s peak, jaywalking is commonly being seen everywhere as it appears to save time for you. But believe me it actually don't. And it looks, instead of car being a danger to pedestrians; pedestrians are now dangers to cars. Although DTP (Delhi Traffic Police) has enforced a rule under the section 28 of the Delhi Police Act, against all jaywalkers by which they will have to pay a fine from Rs. 20 to 100, still more than 900 pedestrians a year fail to make it to the others side and killed by the city drivers (as per DTP record). Delhi traffic police took up the “safe pedestrian week” drives twice in since last August. But have we learn something out of it? I seriously doubt. How many times we see the whole group of people jumping on the road in front of you when you are crossing a signal especially when you signal is green. I read somewhere that in UK it’s legal to cross all the roads except motorways, While there also it is suggested to “cross using a subway, a footbridge, an island, a zebra, pelican, toucan or puffin crossing, or where there is a crossing point controlled by a police officer, a school crossing patrol or a traffic warden”. In other countries like USA, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and others, jaywalking is commonly considered as infringing and the penalty is usually a fine and in Singapore the maximum penalty is 3 months in jail. Large hoardings are used with “Caution No Jay Walking USE CROSSWALK” symbol to educate the pedestrians.

Well there is a system called “Traffic lights”. These help pedestrians and motorists to let them know when and who has the right of the way. If any pedestrian fall down while on crosswalk, people would be there looking for them but if they do it while jaywalking, It would be difficult for a motorists to avoid an accident. Thus we as pedestrians also need to understand to respect motorist's right to use the road. People should use subways and foot over bridges. Always use the Zebra crossing at the signals/crosswalk. I my opinion the Authorities should take Pedestrian education drives more often. As much as I hate to say but section 28 of Delhi Police Act (against jaywalkers) needs to be enforced strictly for habitual violators.

Roadside Liquor vends increasing the troubles for public

2010-07-02T23:50:00.000-07:00

I was walking towards my home after parking my car (I use a public parking), when I crossed a liquor shop. The Vehicles were parked haphazardly, The 4 lane road was reduced to single lane by the vehicles of the customers, parked on the road. Traffic was just crawling. This is an everyday scene in our neighborhood.

In view of Commonwealth games Government has given an okay to sell liquor in shopping malls. But What I want to ask is what is being done to ensure that this revenue generating business do not generate the Nuisance for the public. Should there be not a rule stating that a liquor vend cant be operated in a area where there is not enough parking space. Also there should be a police constable deployed outside every liquor vend to ensure no drinking on road is allowed. This is a normal practice that the guys would stop their cars (or Bikes) buy a pint of beer open and enjoy it on the road only. Have we not seen it every time we have crossed any such shop? Now should we allow these people to drive after they drink? Its too risky.

This creates multiple problems. The cars (and bikes) are parked on the road leaving only a quarter of the road for people to use. Another problem is once the people have had their beer and start feeling light headed few spoilt brats would try to pickup the fights. This all is happening because Delhi police is short of staff (or that's what is told all the times). Liquor vend is too busy serving the customers that they cant put someone to stop people from drinking outside the vend. Even the shops nearby, do not bother to ask these drinkers not to drink in front of their shops. The space outside these shops becomes the open air bars for them. These shops and hawkers supply snacks and cold drinks so they do not want to loose their customers. And why not? The law leaves every opportunity for defaulters to escape from it. A shopkeeper who is actually providing snacks and even the plastic glasses can easily say I can stop from drinking within my premises but not outside it.

What I suggest is any shopkeeper outside whose shop people are found drinking should be legally bound to register a telephone complaint and ask for help to remove these drinkers. If he do not call the cops he should be fined. Public should be encouraged to make such complaints to the local police station. The telephone number of the local police station should be written in big font outside the liquor vend along with its license number. Even today we have rules that says “no liquor vends are permitted to be opened at a distances of 50 meters from the main gate of a place of worship, educational institution and place of public entertainment”. Police should do random checks and enforce a heavy penalty on those who drink on the roadside and to the shops or vends who allow such behavior.

Pelican signals to facilitate pedestrians to cross roads safely

2010-06-25T10:45:00.000-07:00

First thing, I would like to say that ‘Everyone is a pedestrian because everyone does walk as part of their means of getting around, no matter which mode of transportation they happen to be engaging in’.

In today’s world, we all have to be somewhere at specific times, therefore the road traffic is growing rapidly on regular basis and causing increase in fatal road accidents. So to face up, Traffic Signals are introduced as the solution to all accidents and traffic control.

Most of times it happened to see that Pedestrians are forced to wait endlessly at busy junction to cross the road and they take the risk to cross the road and ‘yes’ that risk can convert into an accident and sometimes it happens. But no worry, a tool called “Pelican Signal” is here to help us to overcome these situations. Though the Pelican Signals have been installed at various crossings in Delhi a little more than 3 years now, but public is yet to know that such a concept exits.

Pelican (Pedestrian Light Controlled Crossing) signal is a definitive light controlled crossing signal that features a set of traffic lights (Green Man & Red Man Signal) with a push button, operated by pedestrian for crossing. The controls to operate the light signals are on the pedestrian’s corner while the light signal for crossing is on the other side of the road. So if 4/2 wheelers are taking too much time at the signal, the pedestrians can press the button at the signal to cross the lane. When you want to cross, push the button to activate Pelican and if, Red Man signal appear on the other side of the road, do not cross and wait for the Green Man Signal to appear, but if, green signal begins to flash then you should not cross if you have already started you should have time to finish crossing safely. At some places audible Pelican with warning sounds are installed for visually impaired to safely cross the road without assistance.

So obviously, it would reduce the ‘wait time’ that pedestrian have to spare for crossing the road and once people will know the usage of Pelican there will be no question of chaos or accidents. We just need to spread awareness about it.

The Pelican Signals have been installed at more than 46 crossings in Delhi including Shanti Van, India Gate and Ashram Chowk. And I think, it is very important step taken by Delhi Traffic Police as the system had considerably reduced the accident toll of pedestrians in countries like US and UK among others.

Electronic Parking Meter should be introduced in all Parking Lots by Delhi agencies

2010-06-22T03:22:00.000-07:00

Today, Our Capital is reeling under a severe parking crisis at parking lots because parking in Delhi is often a pain at varied places like Hotels, Metro Stations, Shopping malls, government offices, because of the exponential growth in number of automobiles at unbearable rate for the corresponding space to park them at ease. In fact today MCD has only 143 surface parking sites which can accommodate approx 15,000 cars as against 60 lakh registered vehicles in Delhi. There can't be any ban on buying cars but 'Yes' there is always a thing called 'Management' which is made for and comes out for rescue to manage any messed chaotic system.

Parking is not about creating more space but optimizing its usage. The strategy behind parking is to manage the total available space and implement time limits for parked vehicles. How many times you people said that we don't want to go for shopping and it is just because there is no parking space in parking lots. There is no space because of lack of well managed system. "Electronic Parking Meter" can be a great tool in managing parking lots.

An electronic parking meter is a device used to collect money against parking a vehicle in a specific place for a limited time. A timer is set in the meter and display on the meter displays the remaining time. This helps people to move their cars within the allotted time. The credit card or smart card swiping option cuts the wait for the parking slip. When implemented properly it can support identification of unoccupied space and vehicles can be guided towards it. Through this, Govt. can also charge people who park their cars on public space on a street. It reduces the requirement of manpower for managing parking. Apart from it, people go on vacation and works around 8 hours per day only, so these issues will obviously be overcome by Parking meters so it also reduce the personnel cost.

Authority concerned Delhi Urban Mass Transit Authority (DUMTA) can consider proposing these meters for the welfare of traffic society and this will lead the current parking system to a more orderly and manageable parking system. Services like this will surely be another milestone in an aware developing country like ours.

3 Es of road safety Engineering, Education and Enforcement

2010-06-18T03:39:00.000-07:00

How many people of us have experienced the fatal experience of getting almost into an accident and the very next moment thanked god by closing eyes for a sec for saving us from getting into a catastrophe? How come these situations happen to exist in our life? Reason might be the error on the part of us or other road users. No matter what, the incident still pamper n lingers our mind later when we relax at home or when we have nothing else to think about but only highlighting incidents of the day. And we assure ourselves not to get into the situation again if possible at par.

But as they say "life doesn't always give you second chance". It's good to learn from mistakes, but it can't be every time the reason or excuse for learning, to be a decent player on the road. Today there is a need to focus on few things about technical aspects of road safety, a need to revisit 3 Es of Road Safety which is an acronym for three major aspects Engineering, Education and Enforcement.

It is observed everyday a lot of people get injured and killed because of road accidents. And these accidents occur mainly due to pesky road conditions.
Engineering
Today we have got modern equipment, facilities and lot of other engineering marvels to make our lives a lot safer on the road. But there is always, lot more left to do to keep up with the standards or norms of technical road aspects. For instance in practical consideration, wider markings consistently produce improvements in lane keeping discipline on highways. We need to work on the concept of forgiving roads. It is the concept which ensures minimum danger to a road user even in event of accident. A lot needs to be reconsidered and improved upon.

Education
Another aspect for road safety is to educate people about the best practices, guidelines, regulations. Because one would follow a guideline or law only if he knows that guideline or the law. Press and media can help us in this regard. Documentaries, films, booklets and posters apart from other online and offline mediums can be made use of to improve awareness. It is imparted through the exploitation of the Do's & Don'ts from the time a person gets in touch with the road arena. In Delhi; Delhi Urban Mass Transit Authority (DUMTA) is the nodal authority to tackle the capital's chaotic traffic. DUTMA and other agencies like Delhi Traffic Police should take up the responsibility for the awareness programs. And moreover Campaign presentations and Publicity & radio Advertising will do even better.

Enforcement
Higher authorities, traffic wardens and police are responsible for the system to come in force. Police enforces and law courts are responsible for penalizing the person not making upto the rules criteria and so allotted with traffic chalans or penalty and fines to be payable, which acts as a learning lesson for offender for future awareness. Enforcements are generally implemented in the formal ways through "Targeting Crash risk areas", "Extra Patrols on Roads", "Speed Cameras" and much other which may include Road fatalities Ambulance, Special Police duties among others. The stricter we implement the laws the safer we will make the roads. No corruption should be allowed for the enforcing authority because there is simply no scope of it.

Increase In Road Tax On Two-Wheelers Purchased In Delhi Is not Well Thoughht Decision

2010-05-29T04:39:00.001-07:00

Delhi Government recently decided to increase the road tax on the vehicles registered in Delhi. As per the plan the rate for cars, priced up to Rs.6 Lakh is doubled to 4%, for cars between Rs.6 Lakh and Rs.10 Lakh it is upto 7%, while for cars costing Rs.10 Lakh road tax is 10%. It is very high when compared to existing 2% of the vehicle value but I still believe it is the right step taken (with wrong thought process though). What concerns me more is that the road tax percentage for two wheelers has been increased to upto 6%. As per the plan prepared by Delhi Govt. (Pay attention Ms. Dixit) two-wheelers costing up to Rs.25,000 will be charged the existing 2%, while those costing between Rs.25,000 and Rs.40,000 will now attract 4% and those above Rs.40,000 will be charged 6%. I am just curious how many two-wheelers in Delhi today are available for Rs.25,000 or Less. Do you remember Luna (or Loon Naaa), even Luna costs Rs.25,000. Thus what essentially Delhi Govt. has done is increased the road tax rate for practically all the vehicles.

In Ms. Dixit's view the step will discourage the use of private vehicles. So if the road tax is increased there will be reduction in the purchase of vehicles thus lesser traffic. Well by this logic raise the food prices there will be lesser obesity (oops did I trigger another price rise?). They work on the concept of "Discourage use of private vehicles" while the concept should be "Encourage use of public transport". Provide a better public transport and people will automatically leave their cars behind. I have earlier also written about the same subject and today after I have spent a lot of time thinking, still stand for this logic. God please forgive them because they do not know what they are doing.

Delhi Traffic Police goes social with Twitter and Facebook accounts

2010-05-19T04:08:00.001-07:00

When I joined Twitter and started following people apart from my colleagues, friends and some industry leaders I searched for the concerned authorities in various departments, especially Delhi Traffic Police (DTP) and the road and transport ministry. But I was unable to find someone. Online is very a good medium to connect with the people who are concerned. Then I read about Delhi Traffic Police initiative in the newspaper and was happy to know that the department is looking to come closer to the people who wish to contribute. The only problem was the newspaper did not tell the URL for the traffic police profiles on the social media. I thought of searching it twitter/Facebook. Twitter was no luck but I could find Facebook page for DTP (that is one of the reason for me to write this post).

Click here for Delhi Traffic Police facebook profile. Through Facebook(FB) they plan to provide information about new plans, initiatives and challenges, and also make the users aware about the traffic situation in the city besides seeking suggestions, reactions and views from citizens. At the time of writing this blog the count of the people who liked DTP Facebook page was 1,231. People are posting a lot of queries and suggestions on the wall of the page and also being amazed by the fast response from Traffic department. I saw their responses till as late as 10:00 PM in the night (on the day I joined their FB page). Some critical information like the URL of DTP suggestion page on DTP site, Contact Email ID and the call-center phone numbers were missing from the info tab of the FB page. Another thing that I found here (FB page) is links to other social media profiles (twitter) missing. Photos tab show the photos of DTP personnel in action (also the image of TSR complaint campaigne). In the discussion forum they have displayed four topics including 'Delhi Tourist Police', 'Guidelines for Foreigners Visiting Delhi', 'Traffic Management during Commonwealth Games' and 'Safe Pedestrian Drive by Delhi Traffic Police'. Hope to see a lot more topics there. There is an additional tab called "Boxes" which carries all the links shared on this page. I sincerely hope to see a sea change starting with this initiative.

Though hunt for DTP twitter handler did not return any thing on tweeter search a status update on FB worked for me. I asked about the tweeter handler on FB and a page fan (sorry I still call it "Fan" and not "Like") replied back with Twitter ID for DTP. The ID is @dtptraffic. DTP says that through twitter the plan is to provide real-time updates of any traffic snags due to events, processions, rallies, road congestion, accidents etc. The History tells it started on 14th May, already has 254 followers and tweets an average of 5 tweets a day. People are interacting with DTP and in some cases are actually being creatively funny. For an instance on 3:10pm, May 19 @libinmb tweets "Beware delhi police in twitter @dtptraffic to controle the twitt traffic:)". The expectations from the social profiles of DTP are very clear from all the posts and updates. These are i) More and more updates (@rohitdass updates "at this rate of 6 hourly updates there would hardly be any use of them updates") ii) Platform to get evaluate and implement suggestions and iii) Provide the details about lesser known traffic laws.

At the end I would say it is really heartening to have our Delhi Traffic Police come up an age and embrace the Mediums of today's generation to communicate with them and being open to take all those bouquets and brickbats. All we need to see now is how far they go with it because the opportunities and options are unlimited.

Remove the obnoxious autos from Delhi roads - Why?

2010-03-23T01:46:00.001-07:00

All sorts of discussions started when our CM Smt. Sheila Dikshit suggested "that autos will be phased
out of Delhi roads once Government find alternative to three-wheelers." Well this is a small question I want to ask the Janta of Delhi what actually is the issue? Is it auto or Auto walahs or their behavior? Ask from me I'll say their behavior. So if that is the case will replacing autos with some other form of vehicle or transport system resolve the issue?

Well No alternate vehicle is going to resolve the issue. Replace it with Radio Taxi, as someone suggested in one of the blogs, but keep the drivers; Pooff what do you get? the same old issues of passengers being hackled. May be a different transport system could be the answer to the problem. We will have to devise a way by which Govt. can ensure that no Autowalah (let me call them Autowalahs only at this point of time) can over charge, refuse to take you to your destination or refuse to go by meter. Delhi Government really need to rein in the autos.

For this Govt. will also have to tackle the problem of Auto owners exploiting the drivers. The Badges and registration of Auto in the name of the driver are two good measures Delhi Govt. has taken in this direction. But how far has it implemented these measures? Now this is only a hunch but I believe that not more than 20% of all auto walahs have Verified their permits and received new badges from the Authorities. Please correct me if I am wrong. I'll be more than happy to be wrong on this one.

Dont be a monster behind the Wheel

2010-02-13T01:26:00.000-08:00

Friday night I was returning home from my office in my car and was stuck in a bad traffic maybe because if the evening rain. Hoooonnnnnnnk Poonnnn Hoooooooonnnnnnkkkkkkk and then Screeeech stopped a Hyundai Accent right behind my car. Honk Honk Honk Beep Beep Beep this guy was really impatient. I moved to the next lane, he found some space to slip in and Honk Honk Honk again. He kept honking speeding with full paddle to plug the gap and Honk again for the next car.

Now I would give him the benefit of doubt and assume he was carrying someone who needs immediate medical attention. But how many of such cases daily are really carrying a patient to the hospitals. I guess most of them are not. It’s only their Adernalin rush in more than 90% cases. Well have we ever thought about the negatives of it? Well let’s start with the amount of fuel you burn with this accelerate break accelerate break accelerate break. When we are using too much of that accelerator paddle mileage of your car actually decreases by as much as 25%. What! You are big shot and fuel prices don’t bother you much, remember fuel reserves are limited but I guess that also won’t bother you much. Okay your rash driving can prove dangerous for others. How dangerous? Well dangerous enough to kill someone. Kill a loved one, may be a son or a daughter or worse, the lone bread earner of a family. How does that affect you? Imprisonment could be one reason. But then yes you might have the connections at the top positions which could save you from the prison. But what if you get hurt? Can your connections ensure that you don’t? Do I need to go even further to count more evils of that rushing Adernalin. Just think once before you step on you Gas next time. Drive safe.

How to prevent reduce Driver Fatigue

2009-07-16T01:40:00.000-07:00

Two weeks back Eddie Wren from Advanced Drivers of America shared an article on how Mercedes has introduced the system to tackle drowsiness while driving. Mercedes is introducing new Attention Assist system, designed to detect drowsiness on the driver. But technology can only help in creating the tools which we require to make things go our way. To avoid the evils of he drowsiness while driving we should also make the conscious effort ourself. When I asked Eddie to help me in putting up an article on how we can prevent or reduce the driver fatigue (and drowsiness), he shared some really good facts and techniques for the same. These items are collated from empirical research on global best practice. Thus these carry Copyright of Eddie Wren / Advanced Drivers of America. I have added my analytical effort and created these guidelines.

GUIDELINES TO HELP YOU PREVENT OR REDUCE DRIVER FATIGUE

1. The best and first way to prevent driver fatigue is to get enough sleep. This means sleeping for at least good 8 hours before you set out for the trip.

2. Avoid heavy meals before long drives, especially if you are one of those who feel snoozy post dinner

3. Avoid alcohol, which contributes to sleepiness, large meals and any medications that might make you drowsy.

4. Adjust your seat to an upright position so that the base of your wrists makes contact with the top of the steering wheel. Keep the temperature even; driving in a car that’s too warm or too cold can make you sleepy.

5. Stop every two hours or 100 miles (160 Kilometers) of travel -- whichever comes first, for at least a 20-minute break. This is important not only to maintain alertness but also to prevent deep-vein thrombosis. It is bad for your circulation -- particularly your legs -- to sit for too long at the wheel of a vehicle, without exercise.

6. Once you have stopped, if your health factors permit, drink a caffeinated drink (e.g. coffee, tea e.t.c.) then have a brisk walk.

7. If you actually start to feel drowsy while driving, find the first safe place to get off the road and stop, as promptly as possible. This must be a safe distance away from any moving traffic.

8. If you stop as suggested above, you should -- if possible -- have TWO caffeinated drinks (not just one) then take a nap of up to BUT NOT EXCEEDING twenty minutes.
(Use your cell phone's alarm to make sure you awaken before the 20 minutes is up). This apparently random reference to 20 minutes is actually very important and it relates to the fact that a human brain identifies a long nap as being the start of a longer, deeper sleep, and it therefore triggers the release of endorphins into the blood stream specifically to make you go into and stay in a deeper sleep. Clearly that is not a signal you want your body to issue if you plan to continue driving. Those endorphins, once released, will stay in your blood stream for around 8 hours and will make you a major danger to yourself and to everyone who crosses your path during that time.

9. If you follow the directions in paragraph above, you should be okay for another session behind the wheel (but be particularly careful to monitor your own alertness). If you start to feel drowsy again during this next portion of your journey, enough is enough; it is time to stop and find a motel. Continuing to drive might result in you killing yourself or -- even worse -- perhaps obliterating somebody else's children (or maybe even an entire family).

10. Shift-workers -- in particular night-shift workers -- have a much higher risk of crashing due to drowsy driving. Young men, in their teens and their 20's are at a higher risk than other people, too.

11. Be very cautious about driving overnight. At night the brain simply follows the body clock irrespective of your actions and releases endorphins, so if you drive during your normal sleep period, you are putting yourself and all around you at significant risk.

Hope this will help you enjoying a safe driving trip.

Sure way to avoid traffic on the roads is to start early

2009-06-21T07:39:00.000-07:00

In one of my twitter posts I had said "Sure way to avoid traffic on the roads is to start well in time". This will not reduce the traffic on the roads. But who wants to avoid traffic anyways. That's the whole fun of driving; maneuvering through the traffic and then smiling on your skills. What makes you yearn for a lesser traffic is the little time you are left with to reach may be office, a very important meeting, your girlfriend / boyfriend .... (there could be a looong list). The traffic wastes the time and in turn causes the stress. On April 3 expressindia.com published a news "Man beaten to death in traffic jam for not reversing vehicle". Its nothing but the stress. But when you start early you can afford to waste those 5-10 minutes.Just take that opportunity to look around. Did you notice that beautiful garden, or a nice eatery on your office route, which you would have zipped past in a stressed situation. You'll feel as though the traffic has reduced. You can also take your girlfriend there next time you plan a time out.

On the other hand when you are driving fast, you may also hurt someone (or worst kill) on the road. I know that the fuel cost don't pinch your pocket, but if does; just consider the fact that driving fast burns twice as much fuel as driving at a constant and controlled speed.

Driving fast don't even look cool. A high speed action only look cool in the films. Those sitting with you and those who see you driving, while you are at the top of your speed, understand exactly who is driving. Is it you driving the car? or car driving you. The car is not Ferrari 612 Scaglietti Sessanta nor you are in NFS track. That was last night when you spent most of your time playing that high speed action and earned yourself those dark circles. By the way, how many times you met with accident in that game. Someone said "Speed thrills but kills". Don't play with your and especially others life. Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.

Even if you are one of the best drivers, everybody else is not. People can get scared seeing your speed and loose their control. Then you would have no right to fight cause you actually was the trigger for the accident. Do share your thoughts , experiences and whatever else fits fit in this Blogs context. Till then START EARLY, BE SAFE.

Park Heavens Added to Twitter

2009-06-02T05:23:00.000-07:00

Starting Tuesday, June 2, 2009, Park Heavens posts will be available at Twitter also. Follow me at @lochanrajeev

Horn Not Ok Please

2009-04-29T04:00:00.001-07:00

The other day I was reading that Merc, BMW, Lexus and few more big automobile companies are planing some critical modifications in their cars। They are ging to do away with a few of unnecessary accessories used in the today's cars. This will not only reduce the cost of the cars but also provide some relief to th people which find all this jing bang an extra load. Okay let us now talk about the accessories they are planing to remove.

Brakes: Merc believes that the brakes are really not required in the cars
Accelrator: BMW is planing to remove the Accelerator pedal from their cars
Indicators: Lexus is in no mood to install either accelerator or the side indicators.

They all believe installing a simple horn can serve the purpose all these accessories। The base behind this theory is a study done by an agency RNL Enterprise. This study confirms that horn is used most out of all controls installed in the cars. If the car moving ahead of you slows down, you blow horn before you apply the brakes. People Want to cross the car moving ahead of them but even when allowed the space to zip past, they just go horn happy and keep waiting till the time car ahead pulls down the road leaving the entire road width for their perusal.

The other day I was reading the writeup of a fellow blogger who gave the figures of the sound pollution on the Delhi roads। According to his blog, while the permissible limit of the noise on the roads is 60 decibels, we experience the noise upto a level of 80 Decibel on quieter roads and upto 100 decibels on high traffic roads. It really hurts our ears. Delhi Traffic Police did observed No Honking day on the first day of this year and challaned 770 people on one single day. But still there is no taming of these honking monsters (Oh am I being to LOUD?). I guess Delhi Traffic Police should observe many more such No Honking Days (may be 300 days a year). People would definitely learn some discipline when they start paying out rupees 100 (that's the penalty for unnecessary honking in Delhi). Delhi Traffic Police will also have to allocate some budget towards the educating campaigns for the public. Consider using offline as well as online medium for advertising. Online could be a very cost effective medium. We should use radio also to spread the awareness about the honking disadvantages.

It really is not difficult to find people who honk every few seconds out of pure reflex. A century ago when Henry Ford attached the first Horn (a double trumpet attached to a rubber bulb) he was looking for an equipment to softly alert vehicles to make sure they don't swerve suddenly. Now I am not saying just throw the horn out of your car neither I am suggesting you to attach it with your car battery to give you a shock every time you try it. But use it when only when it is absolutely necessary. Believe me you will find a lot of chances to do that. But please have some mercy on t he people who are going deaf because of all that noise we make on the roads today.

More buses, Carpools, Behaved Autos and strict enforcement will reduce traffic problems

2009-04-20T07:05:00.001-07:00

Blame it on my laziness or the amount of workload I was dealing with. But yes, the promised post on the measures to reduce the load on roads is delayed. Anyways here it goes. To decrease the traffic on the Delhi roads, apart from raising the traffic penalties and the parking charges, I will suggest following measures also.

1. Increase the DTC bus fleet on the Delhi roads: For adventure's sake try to commute by DTC bus service just for one day. I am sure that you will have to wait at least 20-30 minutes before your bus arrives and then you will find it too crowded to make you put your idea to take bus aside. The current fleet of roughly 6400 buses (3600 New Low floor buses and 2800 old busses) is not sufficient for Delhi roads. The government will have to at least triple the busses to provide a service every 5-10 minutes. Also the buses should allow only a fixed number of passengers. A commuter is more likely to ditch his car/bike for the bus service if it does not keep him waiting and provides sufficient comfort.

2. Improve the other means of public transport: Nobody likes to be heckled by the Auto / Taxi drivers. The government will have to ensure that Auto drivers have enough discipline to a) Not to refuse the passenger without any reason b) Always go by the meter. I am sure people will stop taking there beloved cars out of their garage. Read more about the "Psyche Of A Delhi Auto Driver" in this blog by Maryann Taylor

3 Encourage Car pooling: This is one point that I guess has already been acted upon. Some days back I used to hear this radio advertisement which appeals you to car pool forgetting any differences if you might have with copassengers.

4. Ensure stricter implementations of law: There is an urgent need to see that whatever fines or penalties are decided (the current or the proposed hikes) are implemented strictly. There should not be a case where people know hey can get away by bribing a constable.

After writing all this I still believe that there is a scope to add few more suggestions here. I will be more than happy to see suggestion coming from you about the post.

Chalans and penalties not only solution for traffic voilations

2009-03-29T22:42:00.000-07:00

A lot of readers of my blog have suggested me not to restrict the blog only about the parking but write about the traffic and traffic safety. This also sounds like a logical extension of the topic. Today after reading the news about the new bill for higher fines for traffic violations, I found it right topic to start the traffic related posts.

The Motor Vehicles Act 1988 is being amended to raise the penalties for the vehicles violating traffic safety regulations. Plans to hike the parking fees enough to force people to be more careful on the roads are also there. But will it really do the job? The data collected during the period, when the similar penalty hike was done in March 2007 provides the answer to the question.

Delhi government submitted a status report in Delhi High Court. It mentioned that, from fines and penalties till October 15, 2007, the Delhi traffic police earned Rs. 82,66,73,650 as revenue. This is over Rs. 33 crore more than the total fine (Rs. 49,24,11,750) collected in 2006. However, another report submitted by Delhi police to the Bench led by Justice Mukul Mudgal, had said 622 commercial vehicles were involved in fatal accidents in the Capital as of September 30, 2007 — merely 50 vehicles less than that in 2006...
Now, I am not discussing about the idea of increasing the traffic safety violation penalties. But interesting point is that, similar numbers of fatal accidents (infact more since the 2007 figures were till September only) took place despite the penalties being revised upwards. Does this suggest that some critical traffic safety measures are missing?

Okay for a moment let's talk about a different issue that most of us faced last year. The inflation was high and prices of the essential commodities were soaring high. But did someone start eating less? I did not. Now you would be wondering why all of a sudden my blog talks about inflation and the household budget. This is simple; the same situation can be related here also. When the traffic violation penalties are increased the people will not stop driving on the roads, neither will the traffic situation improve. There will be still as much traffic and as much delay in reaching your office. The people will still keep driving zigzag or jumping the red lights. After all who wants delays because of heavy traffic, become the reason to get fired?

So what is missing in the complete plan? It is the road space. The Government will have to either increase the road space (can we demolish some of the buildings to create more road space! Not really). The other solution could be, decrease the number of vehicles on the roads. Though high traffic penalties and parking charges will be deterrent for commuters love affair with their cars, but then they will have to think ways to reach their destinations. It is really hard to find an auto or taxi that is willing to charge as per the card rate. If you dare the DTC buses they are too less in number. Moreover these not only result in a very suffocating experience but add a long delays also. Moreover I still doubt that there is at least one DTC bus plying on every possible rout in Delhi. I have a few points in my mind to decrease the traffic on the Delhi roads, which I will share in my next post. Your suggestions
are welcome and I would include those i my next post. Meanwhile I'll direct you to another blog which talk about the same issue. Please read Siddharth Bhasker's post here.

Parking laws and provisions for Delhi

2008-09-24T12:57:00.000-07:00

Have you ever got caught in a terrible Parking Jam (What! What is Parking Jam?). Parking Jam, I call a situation where you keep going around in circles to find a free (not necessarily free of cost) car parking space. I remember once I had gone out for lunch with few of my friends. We all got into Nalini's Car. She dropped us in front of the mall where we were planning to eat, and went for parking the car. It was a hot summer day. It took her 30 minutes to find the car parking space that too off the street in front of a gate of residential society. Now I would not take pain describing how it feels being on the road on a hot summer day for over 30 minutes looking for the car parking space. We all know that there is an acute shortage of car parking space in Delhi still we park in a much unorganized manner.

In my earlier posts I have written about the laws those Delhi government authorities like MCD, DDA and others should adopt to streamline the parking on our streets and roads. I sincerely feel more than the laws it is our self discipline which will help. The laws are meant only for lying down the guidelines. In this post I wanted to talk about the parking laws and provisions which Delhi government should have, to meet the requirement of car parking space. The guidelines for parking in mixed land use are very ad hoc and limited. For instance, the Gazette Notification dated 11.03.2003 by The Central Ministry of Urban Development (which allows nursing homes, guesthouses and banks in residential areas) has given only the following guidelines for parking only at those sites:

i) All parking requirements in plot size over 250 sq meters to be provided within the plot.
ii) In smaller plots land in the vicinity will be identified and common parking areas developed.

No guideline for parking exists for other commercial uses in residential areas like retail shops, even though such uses have been legalized. In my opinion Delhi Government should have a law for commercial establishments to leave 60 percent of total commercial space for parking purposes. The percentage suggested here is just a suggestion based on some of the laws which we have in other Indian cities like Bhuvneshwar in this specific case. Government should do an estimation to revise this percentage based on Delhi's car parking needs.

For markets with smaller dwellings there should be land in the vicinity, identified for common car parking areas. There should be no market at all, and I mean NO MARKET AT ALL without a car parking lot. Today in absence of these parking areas the people visiting the shops in these markets park their vehicles on the road in front of the shops. This occupies a lot of traffic movement space on the road and thus results in congestion.

To make parking facilities commercially viable effective parking pricing are also required to be put in place. Today a car parked for up to 12 hrs pays 10 - 20 Rs. This is not at all the price which compensates the parking operator to maintain the parking lot. That explains the condition of some of the car parking lots where almost every one of us has commented how badly these are maintained. Also it does not seem right when a car parked for 15 minutes also pays the same price. I would suggest the hourly parking price. The exact pricing would require some analysis based on the parking need and the any pattern on how long average vehicle is parked in a parking lot. Car parking fees should be such that it covers the opportunity cost of land. The full costs of creating car parking lots must be factored in and recovered from the users. Eventually would limit the number of vehicles in the city by shifting people from private to public transport. I would still insist on need to strengthen the public transport fleet if we wish to achieve this. Some area of parking lot can also be utilized for commercial activities like Snacks Bar/ Cigarette shop, Auto accessories shop, Newspaper stand e.t.c.

To measure the how long a vehicle is parked in the parking lot car parking meters could be installed. Taking a que from my earlier post let me mention the parking meters in Vancouver city. In Vancouver the first parking meter appeared on city streets in 1947. Motorists were charged a nickel per hour. There are now over 7,500 meterd spaces in Vancouver. I am sure we are going to require a lot of such car parking meters in the city. Every parking meter should clearly indicate the permitted time limit for the parking. If you are over parking you need to pay the over parking charges before you drive away with your car.

There also is a need for composite parking policy in the city. In the year 2004 the plans of the city agencies to tackle the problems of parking included construction of modern multi level parking systems in various markets. As per news in the newspapers MCD had to build 15 of such multilevel parking systems and NDMC had to come up with 3 such systems. But till today only 2 of the projects (1 by MCD and 1 by NDMC) have started.

Government also needs to address the parking problem in residential areas. The RPO and RPP areas could be good starting point. Closing of particular streets or areas for passenger cars (except deliveries) could also be looked at. This should reduce a lot of load from the roads and streets. While writing this, Karol Bagh area flashes on my mind. If we implement these policies these would help creating a peace of mind for people who drive as well as pedestrians.

International parking laws make roads a driving heaven

2008-08-13T21:25:00.000-07:00

The other day I was on my bike, driving to the nearby mall. Right at the end of the road a biker was standing with one of his friends. His bike was parked perpendicular to the road in such a manner that it blocked half the road at the corner, disregarding the traffic rules. Now I have a bad habit of giving my piece of mind to the people who have pledge not to follow the road safety and traffic rules. So I just asked this guy why you did not park the bike parallel to the road the answer I got was "I did not know that you were coming this way". The question here is that "Is it necessary that we get a parking ticket or someone object, before we follow the Traffic rules/laws or just correct our habits"? Can't we park our vhicles according to the road safety regulations?

Anyways I had promised that I'll post something about How the street parking and road usage issues are handled internationally. Well I am not an expert in road safety issues or street parking laws but, would still like to contribute my bit for making everybody's life a little hassle free. Who knows that someone concerned from a government agency comes reading this blog and might like to implement some of these International parking which have proven good for other countries. Here I am writing about the wonderful road safety regulations Vancouver has for parking and road usage.

I was talking to someone in Vancouver who provided a lot of information about street parking rules there, for rest I have googled arround. There is a separate department 'City' which is responsible for streamlining safety regulations within the city. An inspector of the city may give notice to any person ordering that person to discontinue or refrain from any work that occupy any land which is meant for public use (How many times have we seen the entire street used to dump the building material for a store being reconstructed). In India the responcibility of maintenance of roads has been given to specific branches of the government. Some roads are under the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), other roads are under the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), and still other roads are under different authorities like NDMC, PWD and similars. I know the authorities like Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and Public Works Department (PWD) have rules against these improper usage of roads. But there is a need to enforce these rules with HONESTY. Don’t we all think so? I guess these bodies should follow the international standards and take the task of defining the on-street parking laws, governing road use and road access, to clear the roads and more importantly the streets we drive on.

The Vancouver city recognizes that residents have a priority in parking on their streets thus it have rules to help reduce outside parking pressures. One of the measures that apply to most streets in Vancouver is the Three Hour By-Law. This By-law prohibits non-resident parking in front of any property for more than 3 hours between 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. This By-law is meant to restrict commuters from regularly parking all day on residential streets. This Law is enforced on a complaint basis only and when a vehicle is found to be repeatedly in violation. Residents may phone Parking Enforcement to report an offending vehicle. This decongest the roads (okay the streets) to help the drivers keep their cool while driving. Where parking pressures from outside a residential block are high, Residential Parking Only (RPO) signs are installed to reduce the street parking. But there are rules for Resident Parking Only (RPO) Zones. If the parking problem cannot be solved by enforcement of the 3-hour By-law, an RPO zone may be installed when the following criteria are met:

The on-street parking density on the block is at or near 100% during problem times.

The problem is caused by non-residents and occurs at least twice a week.

Some households on the block do not have any off-street parking spaces.

RPO is supported by petition signed by minimum 67% of residents of the area.

On the other hand, areas which have schools, hospitals and other intensive parking generating buildings, are categorized as Resident Permit Parking (RPP) system areas. In these areas even the residents need to buy the permits for parking their vehicles on the roads that too where there are signs indicating "No Parking Except with Permit". RPP systems are more restrictive than RPO systems. Vehicles parking in these zones must display a valid area permit, so a portion of most blocks is left unregulated, or more commonly, governed by time-limited parking signs. But motorists displaying a permit for people with disabilities are allowed to park in RPO or RPP zones for up to 3 hours.

The areas under RPP zones and timed stopping areas display the time-limited parking signs on the roads. These signs indicate how long a vehicle is permitted to stop in these areas. Infact timed-parking concept is common in other countries like America and England too. Vehicles can stop only up to 5 minutes for the purpose of and while actually engaged in loading or unloading of merchandise or discharging or taking on passengers. While for a "No Stopping Anytime" zone, vehicles are not allowed to stop for any reason. This includes letting passengers out, picking a friend up for ride, running to the ATM machine, buying a pack of cigarettes or listeing to that ringing phone. This "No Stopping" symbol is used in bus, taxi, commercial, special event, police, parking for people with disabilities and temporary zones.

In a "No Parking Anytime" zone, motorists displaying a valid permit for people with disabilities are allowed to park for up to 30 minutes while actively loading and/or unloading passengers or materials.

There are many traffic laws for street parking vehicles to ensure the safe passage of other vehicles and/or pedestrians. These laws suggest that vehicles must not be stopped within 6 meters of the inside edge of the closest intersecting sidewalk. While on streets/roads without sidewalks vehicles must not be stopped within 9 meters of the nearest edge of the pavement of an intersecting street to provide clear visibility and ease traffic flow at intersections. Another law states, vehicles are not allowed to block or stop within 1.5 meters of a private road or sidewalk crossing. Vehicles must be stopped or parked parallel and within 30 cm. of the curb or the edge of the roadway facing in the direction of traffic. Any lane that has commercial property allows only vehicles with commercial identification to stop in these lanes. In busy commercial areas, warning signs have been posted in most lane entrances. Vehicles must leave at least 3 meters (roughly 10 feet) clearance in lanes to allow for the free movement of other vehicles (this would be applicable for the gentleman I mentioned in the start of my post). Vehicles are not allowed to stop within 2 meters of the inside edge of the closest sidewalk, an intersecting street or lane. These road safety rules discourage motorists from leaving their vehicles in a manner that would pose a safety threat or inconvenience other drivers or pedestrians.

Now let me compare these street parking rules against the rules we have here in Delhi. Though we have the law against the obstructive parking, it only says that one should not park at the corner of the road or too near the crossing. But does it tell me how much is too near the road. Is it 2 meters or 2 feet from the crossing? The laws in Vancouver, those we read clearly say that, on streets without sidewalks vehicles must not be stopped within 9 meters of an intersecting street and for streets with sidewalk it should be 6 meters. People keep parking their cars leaving too much space between the street wall at times we see two or more vehicles parallel parked. This is not only against traffic rules and regulations for road usage, but dangerous for pedestrian traffic too. The rule to leave a space not more than 30 centimeters from the edge of the roadway would definitely free up a lot of space on the roads /streets for other vehicles to move freely. I would request your comments on the road safety laws I have stated above which have made Vancouver city, a heaven for driving. Also your suggestions on other traffic rules which could make our driving eased up, are more than welcome. Rest lets hope for the best. I'll keep posting on other ways to reduce some load on the roads.

Traffic Regulations in India

2008-07-28T05:15:00.000-07:00

Traffic Regulations: Okay in my last post about the parking scenario in Delhi I have talked a lot about the wrong parking and improper usage of the roads. I guess we should also talk something about the traffic regulations which Delhi Government has formed for using the roads properly. I was browsing for the Traffic regulations in Delhi when I stumbled upon this site from Delhi Govt. Following are the excerpt for parking regulations.

DO NOT PARK at or near a road crossing or on top of a hill or on a footpath; too near a traffic light or pedestrian crossing; on a main road or a road with heavy traffic; in front of or opposite another parked vehicle to cause obstruction; on roads that have a white line; near a bus- stop, school or hospital entrance; right next to a traffic sign thereby blocking it for others; at the entrance of a building; near a fire hydrant thereby blocking access to it; where parking is specifically prohibited.

This rule, clearly lays out that Crossing (or too near a crossing) is not the ideal place for parking or even halts. This is a zone which is very critical for the moving traffic. We should always keep annoyance caused to others, in mind when we are on roads. Read more about Traffic Regulations from this site. After reading about the regulations lot of us would definitely make an effort to follow these traffic regulations, I know. We all are the part of very disciplined and law abiding society. But I guess I’ll also discuss the penalties for any defaulters. The penalty for the obstructive Parking is Rs. 100. If you wish to read more about the penalties for other traffic offences, visit http://www.delhitrafficpolice.nic.in/.

In my next post I would like to explore what I feel we (Government and Public) can do to make these roads more safe and more comfortable. We can learn from how other countries are handling these issues and from some of the parking laws internationally.

Park Heavens

2008-01-03T04:06:00.000-08:00

The other day I had borrowed the bike from my friend. It is a 2005 model Hayabusa. It is a fine biking experience. The only grudge is these narrow roads. These don't allow me to open the full throttle. Frankly the speedster in me is still alive and at times makes me crave for that high speed action. Why can't Government Authorities make wider roads, like those we see in all those English movies, for us to have the ultimate pleasure of extreme speed? But on the second thought we do have enough wider roads in Delhi. Space wasted by parking the vehicles wrong, makes them appear narrower. Are we parking the vehicles at the right place or are we parking properly. Do we actually give it a thought. I have noticed the way people are parking their vehicles (this includes the momentary halts too, be it for buying a pack of candies). They can be categorized under 4 different categories.

1. Around the Corner Parking: This is a phenomena that we see at the end of every street. The corners of the streets are the favorite meeting spots for the young boys. Parking your bike outside a Pan shop or a confectionary shop at the corner of the street to spend some time there with your neighborhood friends is like a ritual. Another such defaulter is the auto stands. In India if it is an auto stand it has to be right at the juncture of two connecting roads. What we do not realize here is that the turn is a very crucial part of a road/street. This is where traffic have to slow down to maintain the balance and control on the vehicle while turning. If there is a vehicle parked right at the corner, the driver will have to slow down further. This will contribute to the traffic jam on all the roads at that junction. We all hate traffic jams but do we ever notice our contribution to these jams. I seriously think that we don't. The same can be controled by bringing more clearly defined laws arround it. We can learn a lot from the international parking laws about how clear a law should be.

2. Zigzag Parking: In front of any big store where there is no parking nearby, people tend to park on the road in front of the store.

Parking, majority of the times is not done in an organized manner. The effect of this is that parking uses a lot more than the required road. This contributes to the traffic congestions. In my opinion, we should not park on the road in first place. Rather consider walking few steps by parking vehicle in a designated parking place closest to the store. Walking after all is a good exercise you know. We should take the responsibility of parking in an organized manner even if we have to park on the road. Laws against the obstructive parking are there, but we know the level of enforcement for such laws. Though I would still like to know what the penelties for such parking offences are. I’ll really appreciate if someone can share this kind of information.

3. Banana Peel Parking: This is the type of parking which is made on both sides of the road. At times there would be more than one row of the parked vehicles. An 80 feet road is easily reduced to 60. Just imagine getting a one lane road to drive while actual road is sufficient enough to ply 3 lanes.

4. Median Parking: This type of parking (usually the momentary halts) is seen in the streets. The other day on my way home from the office I saw this guy on the motorcycle. He stopped in front of a shop, I guess to pickup a bottle of cold drinks. He sure was in some hurry, for he stopped right at the center of the road. The bike was looking like a median made to divide the street for two way traffic. Now I think was it really going to take the whole lifetime to park the bike at the side of the road. Right the halt was only for a minute or two, but these two minutes cause the road blocks. Once again the question is why we keep doing these things. We like ourselves to be addressed as educated and sensible men but I don't think this kind of misconduct can put us in this category. We should think about it.

I'll be writing more on this issue in some time. Meanwhile I'll be cribbing a littile more. My blog http://jamroad.blogspot.com/ talks about few things which we do not notice but which contribute to more traffic jams.