Team-BHP - Bangalore traffic cops: Whats with the sudden change?

Traffic police is on adrenaline boost. Over the last week I have been seeing cops catching offenders at almost every traffic junction. Today, the record was broken with over a dozen places on my way to office where cops were busy handing out fine receipts. And there was one with speed cameras on airport road :uncontrol (well to be fair to the cops the commando hospital stretch is where everyone is on the pedal!)

Either some kind of financial target to be met, or is it a first step of getting its act together? I really hope so.

Another welcome change is that the reflective paint is back on some roads and not to mention, road humps.

Recently the dcp of bangalore east was on radio and mentioned that 400 crores have been sanctioned for the btrac program (indirectly means, cops are now wealthier than ever). He said, police can now give no excuse for lack of funds. One very important point he made was about citizens helping out with offenders. He said if one can provide photo of any offender, the police will fine them and use the photo as evidence. Eg: bikers riding on footpath etc. Honestly, I think it can make the wait in traffic lights a bit more interesting :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by kvish (Post 812782)

I am not sure if its coincidence. But I have seen more such incidents during the last few days of every month. May be they are running out of money in the last days :)

You are absolutely right kvish. I have also been noticing a lot of policemen around.Infact I never knew there were so many policemen in bangalore ..hee hee
The months of march and april are usually the times when one can get to see this kind of activity. I guess its got something to do with meeting a minimum number of targets for challans.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kvish (Post 812782)

Recently the dcp of bangalore east was on radio and mentioned that 400 crores have been sanctioned for the btrac program (indirectly means, cops are now wealthier than ever). He said, police can now give no excuse for lack of funds. One very important point he made was about citizens helping out with offenders. He said if one can provide photo of any offender, the police will fine them and use the photo as evidence. Eg: bikers riding on footpath etc. Honestly, I think it can make the wait in traffic lights a bit more interesting :)

Hmm, what's the name of this DCP?

Quote:

Originally Posted by finneyp (Post 812830)

Yes, traffic cops are in action these days, last week at the junction near SAP on ITPL Road, they caught me talking on mobile (normally I don't take calls while driving but this one I had to), and to my bad luck they got me in the act, result: wallet lighter by Rs.400/- :(

Very sad, i see atleast more than a dozen of them doing the same while driving every day.

This has been a daily affair for the last month or so. I leave office only by 9pm to beat the traffic in the city and guess what ? Even at 10pm cops are confiscating vehicles for traffic violations.
At 11pm also the signals aren't switched off(atleast in the route I travel) and they do routine checks on a daily basis.

To quote an instance our D-bhpian Vidyuth had a recent experience with the cops in town which was pretty promising that the cops are willing to lend a helping hand.

Samurai I think his name is Saleem and his email address is dcptrafficeast@gmail.com .

The good thing is I see they are now catching actual violations rather than just picking up people for fancy numberplate's or FFE etc. Sad thing is it is mostly 2 wheelers that get stopped. Though Iv noticed more and more cars being pulled up too.

Also unauthorized vehicles carrying goods or overloaded minivans cannot escape :)

Few things that need to be tackled are :

Callcentre / Cabbies reckless driving
Maxi Cabs (passenger)
People cutting signals <--- ugh

I was also challaned for not having a pollution cert (300 bucks) but then that is my fault and I agree I should have renewed it. A couple of days ago the cops stopped a Passat (being driven by the driver and the owner was also sitting at the back). Was the first time in Bangalore I saw a high end car being asked to pull over.

Yes the cops are on their toes which is the way they should be. I was challened for my HIDs which were 'blue' as claimed by the inspector. I was going to discuss it further with him but when i saw him entering the details in his blackberry and take a receipt through an IR enabled printer, I just could not argue!! This was high tech and worth the challan. :)

I feel the increase in presence (all kind of police, traffic and others) is all because of the comming elections. Last weekend (Fri) on my way to kerala, i saw nakabandhi's (check points) manned by police even at 2am, this was close to Mysore, on one of those less used, good roads.

Usually these guys wind up by 1-1.30am