Sood effect: Traffic flows smoothly on city roads

Team NT
Bengaluru

On Wednesday, News Trail team found that Director-General and Inspector-General of Police Praveen Sood’s directive that no vehicle should be stopped for random checks ensured smooth traffic flow on city roads.

The team, which visited multiple locations in the city, found that except on Seshadri Road, the cops stopped only traffic violators.

Sood issued the directive on Monday after many raised concerns that random checks of vehicles led to harassment of motorists and traffic snarls.

Location: Halasuru Gate & Corporation Circle

Massive random vehicle checks used to happen here before the top police officer issued the directive. On Wednesday, traffic officials did not stop motorists unnecessarily. They picked two-wheelers without number plates and car drivers without seatbelts. Several auto-rickshaw drivers were fined or warned for reckless driving.

Location: RT Nagar & TV Tower

Random checks almost came to a halt in these two places, where massive inspections used to happen prior to Sood’s directive. The police officials, however, kept a close vigil on the offenders using their mobile phones and body-worn cameras.

In February, the High Court of Karnataka had directed the state government to strictly implement the smart traffic management system in the city and ensure that body-worn cameras, procured
for traffic management, are used by the traffic police on duty.

At 1 pm on Wednesday, the police stopped four trucks for license check, three bikers for not wearing helmets and a cab for emission testing. However, it has not resulted in any traffic congestion.
 

Location: Bannerghatta Road & Dairy Circle

Police stopped many cars in the two places for checking emission test certificates around 2 pm. Bikers were also stopped for not wearing helmets. A biker said the number of inspections has been reduced since Tuesday. “Cops used to be present at every other place, but their number has come down drastically,” he said.

Location: Seshadri Road

This is the only place where we saw random checks on Wednesday. Traffic cops stopped the vehicles randomly and asked them to produce documents though it did not create traffic snarls.