Jaywalking on the rise in Delhi

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.

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Roadside Liquor vends increasing the troubles for public

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.

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Pelican signals to facilitate pedestrians to cross roads safely

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.

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

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.

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3 Es of road safety Engineering, Education and Enforcement

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. Read more!

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

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.

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