A loud message against honking in Bengaluru

College students and citizen activists joined hands with traffic police on Wednesday to campaign against honking.

The initiative was carried out by Citizens 4 Citizens (C4C) and St Anne’s College for Women in association with the High Grounds traffic police station. It was held on the busy Miller’s Road in Central Bengaluru.

Students held placards with anti-honking messages to educate vehicle users about excessively and unnecessarily sounding the horn.

Studies show that vehicular noise pollution causes psychological and physiological problems such as anxiety, an agitated heart and autonomic imbalance. The C4C group organised a similar campaign in Cubbon Park a few months ago on the theme ‘Silent Zone.’ Traffic police have now installed no-honking signboards inside the lung space.

“Since the campaign, honking inside Cubbon Park has come down. We need similar campaigns elsewhere to make our city more liveable,” said Kishor Singh, a member of C4C. Rajkumar Dugar, the founder of C4C, said: “People are conditioned to honk, which won’t change easily. That is why we need these campaigns.”

Athaulla Baig, a head constable from the High Grounds traffic police, said: “We need more institutions to conduct traffic-related awareness campaigns.”