Stick to lanes or pay up from today

Traffic discipline

Motorists violating lane discipline on City roads will be fined from Tuesday. Repeated violators stand to lose their driving licences.

Launching a lane discipline programme by the Bangalore traffic police here on Monday, City Police Commissioner B Jyotiprakash Mirji said: “Cases will be registered against the lane discipline violators. Driving licence of repeated offenders will be confiscated.”

The offenders will be identified through the CCTV cameras installed at the 12 traffic junctions.

A sum of Rs 100 will be levied as fine for the first offence and a subsequent offence will be penalised with Rs 300.

Tubular cones and road markings have come up at 12 important junctions across the City as part of the pilot project. Information gathered from the venture will allow for the programme’s large-scale implementation in Bangalore.

The project hopes to make lane discipline mandatory in Bangalore. More than 50 Cobra vehicles of the City traffic police patrolled the main roads, carrying banners and placards calling on commuters to follow lane discipline.

Traffic police officials believe that this simple traffic measure will ease congestion and travel time.

“The separation of vehicles in the direction of their movement will ideally reduce traffic mishaps. But the problem is that the separators can be employed only on broader roads and it is difficult to implement it on many of the narrow roads. But not following lane discipline is one of the major causes for accidents on City roads,” said M A Saleem, Additional Commissioner (Traffic and Security).

The project is being implemented on Mahatma Gandhi Circle, Anil Kumble Circle, Basaveshwara Circle, Shivananda Circle, Cauvery Emporium Junction, Bhashyam Circle, South End Circle, KR Road-Cubbon Road junction, UCO Bank junction, Trinity Circle, Webb's junction and the Sony World junction.

“The project will be taken up on a large-scale, extending it to other areas gradually, and there will be a constant effort hereafter,” Saleem said.