Click to play videoDelhi, according to many is a city of road hogs. Drivers have no manners, many are habitual drunken drivers, while some of them would even kill to get where they want to go.
In the wake of growing unruly behaviour on city’s roads, the Delhi high court announced on Monday, a range of fines on those violating the traffic rules. Rs 1500 for using mobile phones behind the wheels, Rs 600 for not wearing a seat belt, Rs 600 for unauthorized parking and many more.
However, is the step enough to ensure orderly traffic behaviour on the city’s roads?
Traffic Security Expert and IIT Delhi Professor—Dinesh Mohan, DG - Bureau of Police Research and Development—Kiran Bedi, former member of Bangalore Agenda Task Force—V Ravichandar came together on CNN-IBN’s India 360 to debate the issue.
Traffic fines hiked in Delhi: Can fines alone ensure better traffic culture in India?
The court also raised fines for traditional traffic violations — like driving through red lights or failing to halt at a stop sign — noting that the paltry sums don't act as a deterrent in a country where people have grown richer with the booming economy.
Favouring the stand, Kiran Bedi said that higher fines would definitely regulate the traffic behaviour in our country.
“Traffic is made up of three Es — engineering, education and enforcements. If these three are made effective, it will certainly have an impact,” she said. Fines must be revisited periodically every 2-3 years so that the deterrence continues to grow higher and higher, said Bedi.
However, Traffic Security Expert Dinesh Mohan observed that fines alone can’t help the situation much. Better enforcement and monitoring traffic violation on roads is more important, he said.
“It is the fear of being caught that deters most people from violating norms. When people see others getting caught, they start to discipline themselves,” said Mohan who has been a traffic rules consultant in Libya, Iraq and Indonesia. He said that “punishments for defaulters in these countries are much more strict than in India.”
Reports suggest that 94 per cent people wear helmets when the policemen are on the roads because of the fear of getting caught. It’s not the fine but the fear of being caught that deters them.
‘Faulty roads force people to break rules’
Roads must be designed right for the people to follow rules. Unfortunately, Delhi’s situation is pretty dismal when it you talk of roads and their repair and maintenance.
“There is not a single road in Delhi where pedestrians can walk away from the traffic,” said Mohan adding that there is “not a single crossing where pedestrians can cross safely. We allow free left turns whereas no civilised city in the world allows so.”
Our roads designs force people to break rules, he observed.
V Ravichandar who is an urban planner and developer in Bangalore suggested that the money collected by way of fines should go to the police department so that they can use it for traffic improvement.
“In Bangalore about 5-years ago, fines collected by the police were given to them for traffic improvement. It did not go into the state kitty. I think such steps will help getting more fine money,” he said.
Perhaps there is also the need to curb to rampant bribery and corruption in the police departments that makes defaulters think they can play easy with the traffic norms.
Do we need better technology to monitor the roads?
Regulation is certainly the key. But at the same time the violators must be afraid of getting caught, said Bedi adding “we must bring in more technology to our traffic department. More and more cameras must be installed on the roads to catch the traffic offenders on site. Cameras would not lie.”
She said that we must use the fine money for deploying more and more cameras on as many intersections as possible to catch the offenders red-handed. “They can’t deny that they were falsely implicated,” said Bedi.
Should car owners be taxed more?
In Washington DC New York, parking costs $ 9 or Rs 500 per hour. In India there is practically no cost for parking. In Delhi 11per cent of the space is used for parking while a single parking space of 23 square kilometers costs around 37.8 lakh.
Is it that the car owners are simply not aware of the social costs of their cars and the fact that they need to pay for them?
“People think that they can drive and park anywhere. Few years ago even the parking lots were going begging. It’s only a recent development that we adopted a more systematic parking system. In many cities there is no parking habit at all,” said Bedi.
The Center for Science and Environment says that it’s time car owners pay the correct price for using and congesting the city roads.
The CSE report says that a car owner's responsibility doesn't end with just paying the MRP and the one time road tax. The city incurs huge social costs because of increasing traffic. Cost of maintaining roads and flyovers, traffic management, death and disability from accidents, air pollution, and the space the city loses to parking—are some of the issues created by a bloating number of private vehicles on the roads.
Is traffic management not taken seriously in India?
Do we need many more traffic policemen to ensure enforcement? “Yes,” said Bedi. She observed that traffic management till today, is a low priority issue in India. Traffic is becoming a serious matter and it needs better management. “Cameras, CCTVs and technology is needed to catch repetitive offenders,” Bedi.
While talking on a mobile phone while driving has been barred in dozens of countries around the world, the law against smoking while driving in private vehicles appears to be the first of its kind, and could be closely watched in other nations.
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