JOIN USPark your car wrongly in CBD, and police will tow it away
Think twice before parking your car on the roadside in the central business district (CBD) or near BMTC and KSRTC bus stands. Police will likely tow the car away instead of clamping its wheels. You will then have to go to the police station, pay the penalty for wrong parking and take back the car.
The Bengaluru traffic police are clamping down on wrong parking, a major cause for congestion on the city’s roads. While they already tow motorcycles away, they were not acting tough on cars until recently. The situation has changed now.
“People park cars and motorcycles wherever they find space in the CBD and near bus stands. This causes inconvenience to other road users,” Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) R Hithendra told DH. “We will no longer take the matter lightly.”
It’s difficult for police to tow cars away, unlike motorcycles. But clamping their wheels is no solution either as the cars remain on the road and cause congestion until the owners turn up. The complexity of the situation forced the police to think radically. Traffic inspectors have now been instructed to concentrate on towing cars away. As a result, around 150 cars are being towed away every day. And they have set a higher target: towing 1,000 cars away per day.
Hithendra said their focus was on MG Road, Brigade Road, Cunningham Road, Koramangala, Indiranagar, Richmond Road, St Mark’s Road, Majestic, Vidhana Soudha and Race Course Road. “We want to discipline car users. Once they see police towing cars away, they become cautious,” he said.
The penalty for wrong parking is just Rs 100. With parking space shrinking in the CBD and near bus stands, people park on the roadside. Roadside parking near bus stands is common during morning and evening peak hours as people rush to drop friends and relatives or pick them up. In the CBD, the phenomenon is prevalent between 10 am and 5 pm, according to police.
Bengaluru’s growing vehicle population is making traffic management difficult. The vehicle population doubled in just 10 years. The city now has around 62 lakh cars, up from 31 lakh vehicles in 2006.
Cases for parking near bus stand
In 2014, the traffic police registered 36,632 cases for parking near BMTC and KSRTC bus stops. This number was 37,924 for 2015. Till the end of July this year, more than 21,000 cases have been registered.
Section 177 of the Indian Motor Vehicles Act authorises the police to impose a penalty of Rs 100 for wrong parking. Police collect Rs 200 from motorcyclists and Rs 300 from car drivers as towing charge. Violators can get the challan from police and pay the penalty in court. Sometimes, police ask violators to pay the penalty at the station and collect the vehicles from designated areas where they are parked.