Next time you drive on city roads, watch out for the red beacon vehicles coming near you. For, the drivers in red beacon cars seem to have no fear of law and UT police develops cold feet over complaints regarding vehicles flashing red lights.
At a time when the UT administration and UT police are claiming to have strict vigil on rash driving in the city, such cases go unchecked especially when the defaulters are driving vehicles flashing red light.
An incident happened with this reporter on Thursday evening corroborated the aspersions on UT police and drivers of Government vehicles especially the cars flashing red lights.
The car of this reporter was hit near Sector 19, 20, 27, 30 roundabout by a speedy white Camry flashing red beacon. After hitting the car, the driver of white Camry bearing Chandigarh number starting from 103… sped away.
While a complaint was made to the PCR immediately, the PCR gypsy reached the spot after 10 minutes of the accident. While the complainant informed the police about the direction in which car sped away, Police failed to give information to other PCR gypies in the area and the driver managed to escape.
This in fact unfolded another fact that the network of PCR gypsies stationed at major junctions cannot help them to catch the vehicles of offenders in any area. The incident validated how the PCR gypsies could not get in touch with each other in time and the driver of Camry managed to escape.
The poor response of UT police could also be gauged from the fact that they reached the spot after 10 minutes and information on wireless was also given after five minutes, probably because the complaint was about a red beacon vehicle. After reaching the spot of the accident, the UT police showed their inefficiency for next 30 minutes doing nothing but waiting for their senior officials to arrive and finally the journalist was told to give written complaint against the unknown driver.
After an hour of chaos, an FIR was registered against the unknown driver albeit police expressed their inability to nab the driver as the complete vehicle number remained unknown.
A day after the incident, ASI Vijay Singh, Sector 19 PS said, “We are investigating the matter. We do not have any record of cars having red beacons in Chandigarh.”
Apathy and mismanagement
Purpose of PCRs gypsiesIJ The PCR gypsy took about 10 minutes to reach the spot. There is huge communication gap between various PCR gypsies stationed at major junctions. The red beacon vehicle was not stopped and was not spotted by the any other PCR gypsy after the accident.
Rumble strips: The troubling rumble strips has failed in its objective to slow the vehicles. The rumble strips at Sector 19, 20, 27, 30 roundabout was constructed to slow down the vehicles while approaching the roundabout. Unfortunately, only two wheelers and small cars have to slow down while big cars can easily cross the rumble strips with speed of over 60 km/hr.
lady constables: lady constables deployed with every PCR hardly spoke to the woman complainant while they are deployed with PCRs here to deal with the cases of woman complainant.
language barrier: After writing complaint in English, the complainant was told to translate it in Hindi as the concerned police officials were unable to understand English.
Reckless attitude: The whole time, police personnel were seen saying “Aise accident toh Chandigarh mein roz hote hai” “Bina number ke car ke driver ko kaise pakdenge” (Such accidents happened every day in Chandigarh, we cannot catch the driver without knowing the complete number of car.”