With the recent disaster and rains dominating the attention of public and authorities, the Dehradun police seems to have gone soft of traffic violations in the State capital. At a time when the rains tend to make the traffic more prone to accidents, the police are turning a blind eye to traffic rules violations which continue to exacerbate the risk of accidents on the city roads.
The Uttarakhand Director General of Police, Satyavrat’s dislike for people talking on mobile phones while riding or driving is well known but the police rarely penalise any vehicle user for using the mobile phone while driving.
Another dangerous violation which has been consistently ignored by the Dehradun police is the use of fancy or fluorescent lights in the head lamps of two wheelers and three wheelers. Two wheelers and Vikrams with fancy lights in stead of head lamps are a common sight in Dehradun where the dim lights in blue and other colours do not fulfill the purpose of headlamps for the vehicle users. Spotting such vehicles on time is not easy for all road users which leads to mishaps.
Violations by underage riders are also quite common in the State capital but the police have done little more than conducting periodic drives to penalise the violators and purportedly raise awareness on the issue. Evidently, the penalties and ‘awareness’ drives have failed to have the desired impact due to which underage vehicle users too continue to flout the law with impunity in Dehradun. Since State formation the police have failed to enforce the mandatory use of helmet for those riding a two-wheeler.
The people on the other hand state that when the policemen and women themselves flout various traffic rules, the citizens cannot be expected to follow the rules honestly. The Dehradun Senior Superintendent of Police Kewal Khurana is often seen holding Press conferences after the arrest of criminals, even petty thieves, but it remains to be seen whether his actions are seen to have any concrete impact on the trend of violating traffic rules to the detriment of public in Dehradun.