More than a year since the new Motor Vehicle Act penalties were notified by the Central government, Telangana remains a standout by not implementing the stiff fines. “Motorists are afraid of drunken driving penalties, but they don’t care about wrong-side driving or helmet-less driving. We catch people with seven or nine challans and they are not bothered,” says a traffic police officer who stood with his posse of colleagues to catch traffic rule violators near Mughal ka Naka.
The location is one of the U-turns created by the Hyderabad Traffic Police to speed up flow of traffic. It is also one of the sites for blatant violations of traffic rules as motorists cross the road and drive on the other side to drive towards Karwan when the police officials disappear. “If there is a signal at this site, people will have to wait for at two to three minutes. Now they just drive continuously. They spend about 30 or 40 seconds more,” says the traffic official explaining the logic of the U-turns.
At similar U-turns in the city where motorists have to drive long distances to go to the other side, traffic has become chaotic due to persistent rule-breaking. Under the Tarnaka flyover, among the first sites where the U-turn experiment was tried, motorists now use a small space to walk with their vehicles and then zip on the road.
At the Rythu Bazaar junction in Mehdipatnam, where two U-turns blend into traffic coming from two roads, it is sheer providence that there have been no major accidents. Adding to the chaos are the flower sellers sitting along the pavement and fruit vendors who occupy the narrow road. Motorists from Gudimalkapur drive on the wrong side and against the flow of traffic to drive towards Masab Tank risking their lives.
The result? Police officials have to man the junction for a few hours to manage the traffic. But once the police officials disappear, the traffic becomes a mayhem.
“They stand here everyday between 10 a.m and 1.30 p.m. and strike terror among motorists. Our business goes down during the time the traffic policemen are here as people are scared to stop or slow down,” says Ateeq, a businessman in the Jyotinagar area.
