The Kerala Road Safety Authority (KRSA), Motor Vehicles Department, and the police are facing flak for not making optimal use of digital enforcement systems that were launched with much fanfare to rein in traffic rule violators on highways and arterial roads.
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The systems include 240 speed violation detection cameras and allied surveillance equipment that were installed on road stretches in 2012, most of which fell into disuse due to slack upkeep. Road-safety experts have been crying foul at the alleged slackness by these agencies in proactively keeping tab of, and if needed, intercepting rashly driven vehicles with the help of these digital systems.
Tweaking tracking device
In the meantime, an MVD official spoke of how operators of buses, tempo vans and goods carriers tampered with vehicle-location-tracking device (VLTD) which was made mandatory following the Nirbhaya rape incident on a moving bus in New Delhi. “Even worse, they approach the court and seek refuge in loopholes of the Motor Vehicles Act, to avoid paying fine. Then there are problems like enforcement personnel not having equipment to analyse whether VLTDs and other gadgets in vehicles have been tampered with.”
AI could make a difference
While acknowledging that there are gaps in enforcing road safety norms, an official associated with road safety initiatives in the State hoped that the lacunae will be addressed to a large extent when highways and other roads are brought under the cover of 700 artificial intelligence (AI)-based cameras that are envisaged as part of the automated traffic enforcement system.