Traffic violations by buses spell chaos on roads

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, December 19

While the traffic police is looking the other way, chaos is back on busy city roads with bus operators violating the norms with impunity.

Bus drivers are openly violating the norms but the police hardly cares to stop them from stopping their buses in the middle of the road. To get more and more passengers, most of the buses in the city stop anywhere on the main road, affecting the smooth flow of traffic.

Though the police have erected barricades warning against the practice and directing that a bus should be stopped 20 meters ahead from these, bus drivers hardly care about it.

The violation of by the bus drivers has put lives of commuters and pedestrians into danger. Many incidents have been reported in the city in recent past when many buses crushed motorcyclists to death.

Pushpinder Singh, a city resident, said there was a complete chaos on Hanuman Chowk where bus drivers park their buses in the middle of the road.

“They block traffic coming from Mall Road despite the green signal. The traffic policemen either do not appear or remain mute spectators,” he said.

Sanjiv Kumar, another city resident, said there was nothing new in it. “Even senior officials of the Traffic Police Department are acquainted with it but they do not bother to streamline the system. Corrupt traffic policemen need to be penalised.”He also criticised the authorities for putting the life of commuters in danger at Fauji Chowk and Hanuman Chowk. A senior traffic official said they had already brought the jumping of lights under dangerous and rash driving and a minimum penalty of Rs 1,000 was being imposed on the violators.

“The police have strictly been told not to let any violator go without a penalty. We will penalise the bus operators who do not comply with the norms and create the traffic bottlenecks,” he said.