Mumbai: City cops talk about challenges and challans

Brijesh Singh, Amitesh Kumar and Krishna Prakash at the Top Gear road safety initiative at The Lalit, Andheri East, yesterday. Pics/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

The cream of the cops came together to dispel Mumbai's Monday morning traffic blues at a road safety initiative, 'Street Smart, Street Safe', at an Andheri hotel yesterday morning. The panel discussion and interactive session, with a substantial component on women's safety, was led by Transport Commissioner Shekar Channe, followed by Joint Commissioner of Traffic Amitesh Kumar, Inspector General of Police (Women's Safety) Krishna Prakash and IG of Cyber Crime Brijesh Singh. The glamour face of the campaign was Mandira Bedi.

When the cops, dressed in civilian attire, except Kumar who was in uniform, walked in, there was an unmistakable air of a crisp 'n' crackling presence. The emcee started off proceedings with, "Mumbai is one of the most densely populated cities in the world in terms of vehicular and pedestrian numbers. This presents unique and tremendous challenges for those in charge of road traffic and safety."

Mandira Bedi at the road safety initiative event yesterday

Channe said one needs to go to the root when it comes to traffic safety. "Driving tests need to be more stringent for awarding licences. Driving tests must be conducted on the roads because those are real life situations, rather than on a track," he explained.

The commissioner said, "There needs to be more awareness about traffic safety, especially among people aged 25 to 45 who make up the majority of drivers on our roads. We need the involvement of the community." He added, "There is a very high fatality rate among motorbike riders, followed by pillion riders. We also see a lot of deaths in rural Maharashtra, especially on National and State Highways."

Black spots
Agreeing with Channe, Kumar said, "The police alone cannot monitor road safety, we need community participation. We are involved with the identification and management of high accident zones in the city. At least 52 of these have been identified, many of which are on the Eastern Express Highway and Eastern Freeway. The Bandra U-Bridge is also a black spot. We are setting up speed cutting measures like speed breakers, signage, rumbler strips but long-term measures like enforcement are also being stressed. Enforcement should be effective enough for people to start complying with traffic rules and regulations."

Shekhar Channe, transport commissioner, speaks at the road safety initiative

Kumar also said that the system of e-challans and large scale CCTV-based challans are "hugely effective, they are evidence based policing and result in greater transparency. They also decrease conflict situations between police and errant drivers."

There was some shift in focus when Prakash, the fitness fanatic of the force (he has completed the Ironman challenge), took the mike. In charge of women's safety, he said, "Cities offer greater opportunity for women in terms of mobility and work, so they should ideally be safer, which is not the case. Delhi is the worst in this case, with Mumbai better placed when compared to it."

He added, "We cannot expect women to practise awareness, have a sixth sense about danger, and know self-defence. We have to instill in them the sense that they are safe, they can go anywhere, at anytime, in any attire. Till such time, women's safety is still a far cry."

Virtual safety
Singh's analogy was, "Just like we seek to be safe in the real world by changing our car tyres, we should change our passwords regularly to be safe on the Internet. Accidents in the real world can damage you physically, but in the virtual world it can damage you mentally and cause immense harm to reputations. Keep yourself safe through firewalls."

The cop touched on the Blue Whale controversy to illustrate the gap between this generation and that of parents who are comparatively "less technologically literate". Singh finished off with, "every state has been allocated Rs 4 crore to set up cyber crime centres that focus on cyber crimes against women."

Bedi brought a personal touch to the discussion with, "the e-challan system has put the fear of God into my driver." She finished off with a message for people to take safety seriously "through the year".

Also read: Mumbai traffic department's road safety initiative turns out to be a huge hit

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