Bhubaneswar traffic Issues, Public behavior and the way forward to manage it

Day by day driving in road is becoming more challenging in Bhubaneswar. As the population figure is shooting, the numbers of vehicles are increasing considerably. The government is busy in widening the roads, building the over bridges etc. to address the issue, besides bringing laws and policies to manage the traffic related issues. However, it is felt that the government is more focused on collecting the fines than controlling the traffic issues. Few days back, I saw a news that, the transport authorities of Odisha have issued 35144 e-challans in the month of November 2022. The details of these are; Excess Speed-9416, Without helmet driving 2 wheelers- 15661, Triple riding-622, Wrong side driving-225, Overloading- 510, Underage driving- 38, Without seatbelt-1452, Drinking and driving-1423.

The analysis of above information shows that most of the e-challans have been issued for not following personal protection/safety methods such as driving without wearing helmet and seatbelt, triple riding, underage driving etc. Less e-challans have been issued when the concerned person is creating life threat for others like excess speed, drinking and driving, wrong side driving, overloading etc. I don’t deny that fines should not be collected from all these people, that is needed to create a fear among them so as they can obey the traffic rule. But I also feel the duty of the government is to create an enabling environment where traffic related issues can be addressed properly and that can really promote safety, reduce accidents and fatalities along with making driving on road a pleasure experience for the citizens.

It is a fact that the public behavior on road is the major reason of traffic problems. Now let’s discuss how our public behaves on road while walking or driving.

Most of the pedestrians and the cyclists never respect the traffic post signals. As if the lights and their colours are for the people who drive bikes and other motored vehicles. Whatever the traffic signal is, they would continue their walk or cycling creating problems for themselves and others. And interestingly, I have never seen a responsible authority stopping them or fining them. Many times, I have seen that these cyclists and pedestrians shall come from the opposite side when the traffic signal is green.

It is a fact that many of the people don’t understand the meaning of different signs and lights at the post itself. You go through any traffic signal post, you will see the extreme left side of the road is also blocked, though in most of the places it’s for the uninterrupted passage of those people who want to go left side and it also serves as the emergency road for ambulances. Similarly, those who have to go to extreme right, they stand in the extreme left road and when the traffic police signals, they take a turn creating a jam for the people who are standing at the right and want to go right. Have you ever seen any authority helping people in these situations? It creates lots of traffic jam at the post and both wastage of fuel and time for many. I have seen sometimes the volunteers try to do this and no one listens to them. At Airport traffic sometimes, some announcement on this goes on. Many people don’t know the meaning of orange light and instead of going carefully, they speed up their vehicles if the light is orange. This creates the highest chance of occurrence of accident as people from other side might have started coming in as the light in front of them is going to turn green.

In Bhubaneswar, the size of the vehicle justifies who is wrong in an accident. The public will suddenly rise and might attack the person who has the big vehicle. In case of accident between cycle and bike, biker has the mistake and in case of bike and car, the car driver has the mistake. This type of behavior ensures wrong kind of driving on the road and increases the chances of accidents.

Purchasing vehicles has become so easy that most of the people are purchasing these whether they are having garage or not in their respective houses. So, they keep their vehicles on the road at night and in some colonies its really difficult to come out with your car if you have any emergency at night. Then many drivers, particularly the public transport drivers, park their vehicles wherever they wish to take passengers.?They don’t see whether it is creating any problem for the vehicle coming behind them or not. I have seen very few authorities taking actions on these cases.

When the elected government is more focused on collecting fines from its citizens rather than thinking more on educating its citizen, then the governance is poor. The outside rulers were also focused on collecting more money/tax/fine only. I am afraid, perhaps the governance is moving towards a wrong direction now. Then what a government must do instead of just penalizing its citizens? I have few suggestions;

1.??????Educate the students on traffic rules and regulations from the school itself as most of them will drive vehicles in their life

2.?????Ask the traffic police to focus more on ensuring the clearance on the road, not on checking other personal protection/safety measures

3.?????Put lots of education materials on traffic rules, regulations and individual behaviors in traffic signals and other places

4.?????Fix a minimum qualification at Matriculation level to provide driving license, not just the age.

5.?????Charge parking fees to the people who are keeping their vehicles outside their home and on the road at night time.

6.?????Put the speed limit instruction in most of the places which is very less in Bhubaneswar