Hyderabad: Hum nahi sudherenge! Motorists prefer to pay challans than follow rules

Hyderabad: 'Hum Aise ich hai aur aise hi rahenge.' This is what the Hyderabadis say who prefer to pay hefty fines rather than follow traffic rules. People with their lackadaisical attitude continue to violate rules on city roads, especially wrong-side driving which not only obstructs other motorists but also puts the lives of road users under risk. The violation continues unabated in the city, and many citizens want the police to take strict action against the erring motorist going the wrong direction.

The traffic police has been taking efforts to ensure that motorists follow all the traffic guidelines, but the city roads are yet to become safer for users due to traffic violations like wrong-side driving. The City traffic police is known for its public awareness drives and constant reminders about wearing helmets, avoiding wrong side, triple riding and many more.

According to Asif Hussain Sohail, a social activist, "traffic police's main focus is on helmetless bikers and motorists crossing stop lines. Police seldom taking action against wrong-side and rash driving which is the major factor of obstructing other commuters. One can see traffic jams, wrong-side driving, rash driving, illegal parking across the city. Some traffic personnel can be spotted either whiling away time by clicking photos without a helmet in their cameras or just catching them. If the traffic police are told to curb helmetless riding, they would only focus on such cases and ignore all other violations," he added.

In the last two months, the traffic system in the city has improved a lot but a large number of vehicle owners, including four-wheelers and two-wheelers, instead of following the guidelines, prefer to pay fines. "Wrong side is one of the dangerous violation. This year it was revealed that 15 persons died in road accidents due to wrong-way directions, while 21 deaths were reported in 2021 and 15 in 2020,"added Asif Hussain.

It is said that the main reason of the commuters taking wrong-side is to avoid riding extra miles for taking 'U' turns and instead taking short-cut, leading to obstruct and create confusion to the other commuters.

The violation is witnessed on several major roads in the city including Tarnaka, Secunderabad, Jubilee Hills, Banjara Hills, Yousufguda, Ameerpet, Nampally, Dilshuknagar, Santosh Nagar and other various areas especially during peak hours "These violators with their lackadaisical attitude create nuisance on the road which causes traffic jams and hindrance to opposite motorists. Police must take strict action against the erring motorist and cases must be booked for wrong-side violation," said Dayanand, a commuter.

According to traffic police, they issued challans and booked cases against people driving without a helmet, signal jump, crossing stop line, triple riding, wrong side, blocking free left among others during the past two months. As per the recent violations data, the traffic police issued more than 3 lakh challans for traffic violations and also booked cases against motorists for over speeding, signal jumping, driving without licenses, and other traffic offenses.

"The police identified 25 spots where accidents were attributed to driving in wrong-direction and will be imposing a fine of Rs 1,700 for wrong-side driving and also book cases under Section 119/177 & 184 of the MV Act on those driving on the wrong side," said a traffic police.