BMTC joins hands in campaign against honking

Honking on City roads is likely to come down in the coming days with the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation joining the ‘ I won’t honk’ campaign.

The BMTC on Friday launched two Volvo buses carrying the message against unnecessary honking.

Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy and former India cricketer Rahul Dravid flagged off the two buses. Dravid is also the brand ambassador of the campaign. “This is just one of the many little things we can do to make our city better. Bangaloreans must get a sense of pride for being one of the cities where people don’t honk without reason. I encourage all of you to participate in this drive and pledge not to honk,” Dravid said.

BMTC Managing Director Anjum Parvez said that the corporation was more than willing to provide as many buses as needed to spread the word. “I personally pledge today that I shall not honk while driving,” he said.

Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic), B Dayananda, said that the campaign launched last year had so far received pledges from 30,000 motorists who have promised not to honk unnecessarily.

‘Bearing fruit’

Dayananda further said that the project had started yielding results with the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board recording a drop in noise levels on Mondays, the day designated for the campaign.

He said that driving/riding a vehicle with a shrill horn or a defective silencer amounts to violation of traffic rules and the driver’s licence would be suspended for the offence.
Dayananda admitted that around 25 per cent of 1.1 lakh autorickshaws in the City were operating without permits.

“We want to weed them out and towards this end we are providing colour-coded stickers to autos which submit all documents for verification,” he said.

He added that traffic police were making efforts to educate auto drivers on behaving politely with passengers. He said that not all auto drivers were ‘bad’ and the traffic police want to reward the ‘good’ ones.