Tamil Nadu - Salem

To impart basic principles

Photo: P. Goutham

On road safety: Women police personnel undergoing training in Salem recently. —

SALEM: A bunch of newly-recruited women constables from Tamil Nadu Special Battalion at Pochampalli has been mainstreamed into the existing force to bolster the city’s fragile traffic enforcement. Trained constables are imparting the rudiments of the traffic management to these fresh recruits. Once trained, they will be asked to man the traffic in the city.

Hardly a day passes off without an accident on the roads in the city thanks to the reckless driving of two wheelers and four wheelers. Lack of effective traffic mechanism from the City Police adds woes and even encourages the violators to remain impudent and go unpunished. As the volume of vehicles on the roads has increased manifold, the traffic managers are also bereft of fresh ideas thus leading to a cosmetic enforcement. Police, however, blame the Road Transport officials for many violations. Many traffic meetings in the past with many associations have never evoked any positive result. In fact, meetings with private bus operators asking them to instruct their crew to adhere to the traffic rules have too evoked little response. Narrow roads, inefficient crew and reluctant law-enforcers cause numerous accidents on city’s roads today. Inadequate manpower and frequent failure of signals even in important junctions force the top brass to enlist the services of women constables for traffic management. A woman constable who manned one such traffic junctions in the city was recently knocked down, thus sustaining serious injuries. People, however, feel that the traffic wing of the police instead of confining to the booking of cases should enforce the rules effectively.

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