Coimbatore: Coimbatore is the third largest city in the State but known to be one of the most industrialized cities, next only to Chennai.
Coimbatore: Over the past decade, vehicular movement in the city has more than doubled. To control and prevent increasing road accidents, the government and city traffic police department has taken many initiatives to sensitize public on safe driving.
Though there are many reasons that attribute to accidents, flouting traffic rules is regarded to be a major reason for fatal accidents. Among the top causes of motorcycle accidents, running red lights and ignoring stop signals have led to fatal collisions.
Recently, the increasing non-functional traffic signals in the city has caused much concern to the motorists. While it is speculated that non-payment of electricity bills by the police department had led to disconnection and thus majority of the signals went down, the city traffic police have denied the allegations.
Briefing on the issue, a senior traffic police officer from the city said "Rumors are being spread that TNEB has disconnected power to the traffic signals due to non payment of EB bills. Not all, some of the signals in arterial rods like Avinashi road have gone faulty, due to technical issues. Shortly, the issue will be sorted out."
He also elaborated that "Under the purview of the Coimbatore traffic police there were a total of 51 signals (23 on the west zone and 28 on east zone). Recently, 11 new signals (5 in the west zone and six in the east zone) were added to the list which will be maintained by NGO "UYIR". Overall, Coimbatore city now has 62 signals, out of which 28 signals (13 from the west and 11 from the east) has gone faulty."
He also threw light on the ban of advertisement banners in signals imposed by the High Court. In 2018, Madras High Court ordered to ban hoardings and banners at all traffic signals in Tamil Nadu.
"The move came after a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed by social activist "Traffic" Ramaswamy against hoardings in signals. Prior to the move, the advertising agencies were entrusted with the responsibility of maintaining respective traffic signals. Now, after the ban the traffic police department has been vested with the responsibility of maintaining the traffic signals. Though the ban disrupted the process for a brief time, the traffic police department are gearing up to take complete control of the traffic signals", the senior officer noted.
He also affirmed that the issues are temporary and shortly they will be sorted out with the efforts of the Police Commissioner of Coimbatore city.