Our Policemen and Policewomen on Traffic duty

Our Policemen and Policewomen on Traffic duty

It is a sad sight to see our policemen and women manning traffic in Chennai city. I understand that there are about 9000 such personnel who in addition to the fact that they stand under the severe heat of the beating sun, also have to inhale all the emissions from all vehicles plying on his/her route..... This is a pathetic state of affairs, where human beings are being put to use and abuse. This work can easily be supplanted by technology, not fully though, but substantially.  Imagine if these 9000 personnel are retrained and put on duties like, L&O, crime detection and investigation, management of traffic remotely etc., how much we would be extending their life spans? And her much more efficient, productive and useful they would be?

For this to happen there should be sufficient one time investment on traffic infrastructure; I mean,

1. Where there are footpaths that are not encroached
2. Where road geometrics are of international standards
3. Where pollution control norms for vehicles are strictly enforced
4. Where there are separate lanes for bicycles and other 2 wheelers
5. Where every junction is installed with automatic traffic signals
6. When a data center manages all the traffic remotely
7. When traffic cameras click the picture of the registration numbers of violating vehicles, and immediately generates an SMS to the violator, which means the vehicle database also captures the mobile number of the owner.
8. Three such violations should result in automatic cancellation of the license of the violator
9. The licensing software should be so developed as to capture the above requirement
10. Overtaking is strictly prohibited
11. Over speeding vehicles are immediately impounded on the basis of video grabs at traffic junctions.
12. If sufficient space is provided at select spots in the city for sticking posters and propaganda materials, instead of every bit of space along the city roads as is currently.
13. Arrangement of 2 wheelers, three wheelers etc. on spaces provisioned on roadsides in symmetric fashion.
14. All the above will be based on a robust IT infrastructure.

All the above can bring in the much needed road discipline.... for this to happen, the Traffic Police Department, Chennai Corporation, CMRL, IIT/Anna University, NGOs like Chennai City Connect etch have to collaborate and come out with an immediately implementable plan. Of course there is a cost involved, but then we will be incurring more costs if we don't do it. What I am saying is nothing new...The world over this has been done, except probably in our cities.... Namma Chennai will look more beautiful if we do something just about the traffic alone...and Namma Policemen and women can breathe easy....