A girl dressed up as traffic police requests people to follow the signals in Rourkela. Picture by Uttam Kumar Pal

Bhubaneswar, Jan. 13: Traffic awareness week is being observed in the city, but most residents feel that enforcement of rules remain restricted to wearing of helmets and removal of illegally parked vehicles.

A number of other traffic related issues including disregard for zebra crossings, lack of proper parking lots and drink driving cases still pose a major threat to the city, which is expanding day by day. Most zebra crossings meant for safety of pedestrians at major traffic intersections have either turned invisible or are not being used by the pedestrians.

Vehicles even halt on these crossings at the two zero tolerance zones at Kalinga Hospital Square and AG Square.

In spite of joint drives of police and regional Transport Office (RTO) officials, vehicles can be spotted blowing horns much above the permissible limits.

According to the Odisha Urban Police Act, use of horn beyond 65 decibel attracts penalty, but in reality many vehicles, mostly trucks and buses can be spotted blowing multi-toned and shrill horns.

Although, the Motor Vehicle Act prescribes a uniform specification on the registration plates along with the font and size of the numbers for vehicles, many of these blatantly flout the rules.

“With increasing vehicular congestion in the city, strict enforcement of traffic rules is the need of the hour. But so far the enforcement is only restricted within helmet checking and lifting of illegally parked vehicles. The police need to conduct frequent drives to put a check on drink driving,” said Hemant Samal, a resident of Rasulgarh.

The other area of major concern is the large number of transport vehicles plying within the city without a proper fitness certificate.

Statistics available with the RTO show that as many as 42,124 transport vehicles, including buses and ambulances, are plying without fitness certificates raising chances of accidents.

While there were 599 accidents in Bhubaneswar in 2011, the number of mishaps in 2012 has increased to 625. The death toll stood at 189 in 2011, which dropped to 184 in 2012.

Regional transport officer, Lal Mohan Sethy, said that they would intensify the drive against unfit vehicles. “We will also crackdown on the vehicles plying with out permit,” added Sethy.

The traffic wing of the police has proposed the state government to empower assistant sub-inspectors to penalise traffic offenders. At present, officials in the rank of inspector and above can penalise offenders under the Odisha Urban Police Act.

“Rash driving and drink driving would be our focus in coming times,’ said a senior official of traffic.