The road in front of Bankipore Girls’ High School after the speed breakers were removed. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Speed breakers, or their absence, have apparently raised a new storm in the city with residents being divided on the issue.

Road construction department officials said the streets did not require speed breakers as the city traffic was quite slow.

The government stipulated a rule to build speed humps in front of all educational institutions and hospitals.

However, road construction department executive engineer (new capital division) Chandra Mohan Mishra said they acted upon only requests. “Patna is a city where the traffic movement is slow. There is no need for speed breakers. A request has recently come from St Paul’s School on Digha Road for speed breakers,” Mishra said.

Two years ago, the department built two sets of rumble strips, or a short and small series of speed breakers, in front of Bankipore Girls’ High School on the Patna-Danapur road.

“This stretch remains busy all the time and there have been some accidents, too. Suddenly in October, the road was levelled. It is quite irresponsible for the local administration to do that,” Fatima Khatoon, the mother of a Class VIII student, said.

An engineer of the department said the speed breakers were removed ahead of President Pranab Mukherjee’s visit in October.

Following the death of a student in front of St Xavier’s High School in 2010, the government promised that speed breakers would be constructed near each education institute.

But engineers and policemen said humps would reduce traffic speed in a city where a car hardly moves at 40kmph during the day. “The police have made it a point to be in front of school and college gates during the opening and closing hours,” a senior traffic police officer said.