The city traffic police have sought heavy-duty recovery vehicles to tow away vehicles that are haphazardly parked or obstruct smooth flow of vehicles in view of the influx of private vehicles into the city following the pandemic situation.
“A pair of recovery vans that the police now have falls grossly short of our daily rule-enforcement mandate, since parking violations are skyrocketing on arterial and side roads,” a senior traffic police official said. “Moreover, the pickup van type vehicles cannot tow big four-wheelers and tempo vans. The City Traffic Police (West) need at least three heavy-duty recovery vehicles which can tow away different vehicles, including light passenger and commercial vehicles. This is because all major markets are located in the city hub, which also has commercial hubs like MG Road.”
“The Traffic Police (East) too need such vehicles to act as a deterrent against haphazard parking, including on highways and service roads. A requisition letter to procure them was sent to the police headquarters and we are following it up,” official sources said.
Kochi was among the few major cities where recovery vehicles were not exhaustively used to tow away cars and two-wheelers. Adequate number of such vehicles will help undertake frequent patrol of roads to weed out obstructive parking, including from footpaths. The present practices of penalising offenders and fixing wheel clamp have been inadequate in this regard.
The police had, during the past years, held deliberations to rope in civilian workers to help assist police officers in enforcing traffic rules, as is being done in metro cities.
