Bengaluru: The city police here have now started notifying companies about their employees’ traffic violations, in a bid to raise awareness about road safety and traffic rules.
The initiative was launched in the eastern division of Bengaluru about 15 days ago on an experimental basis. Traffic police officials began by flagging IT company employees who were riding two-wheelers on the wrong side of the road. The police then sent a list of violations to each company.
The initiative is currently underway across Bengaluru’s information technology corridor, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Mahadevapura traffic police division.
“We are just experimenting with this initiative to see if the riders become more conscious about the road safety and traffic rules. As part of the initiative, when we catch hold of a violator, we check his identification card to identify his company. The traffic department is in touch with the companies and tech parks falling under our division. We send the list of violations by the riders to the companies on WhatsApp. We also issue online challans, not spot fines for violations,” Mahadevapura traffic police Inspector Ramesh R said, as quoted by Indian Express.
“We don’t send any personal information but we send the number of violations accounted for by a company’s employees. We recommend that the company or the head of security of the tech park fix a date to raise awareness about road safety and traffic rules. We also recommend they call over the police for a session on traffic rules. The initiative is just to ensure that people follow the law of the land. This way the employees will become more conscious about traffic rules and think before violating them”, he added.
The traffic department collects data every day on the influx of private vehicles entering tech parks along the IT corridor to manage traffic accordingly.
Manas Das, president of the Outer Ring Road Companies Association, said, “The initiative sounds like a deterrent, but I am not sure how much effect it will have. Unless the company pulls up the employee individually for the violation and has a discussion about it, the initiative will serve only a limited purpose.”
On Thursday, the police initiated a crackdown on vehicles carrying more schoolchildren than allowed. The drive was conducted across 48 traffic police stations, resulting in the booking of 708 cases and the inspection of 1,400 vehicles.
Among these, 247 buses, 97 autorickshaws, 134 Omni vans, 201 other vans, and 29 other vehicles were penalized under the Karnataka Motor Vehicles Act for overloading.