Police to target killer buses

NEW DELHI: There are 312 buses plying on Delhi roads each of which are involved in at least one fatal accident and five cases of traffic violations. Some of them have broken traffic rules more than 50 times in the past two years. In fact, one blueline bus is involved in as many as 87 violations. Having identified these vehicles, the Delhi traffic police has now asked the state transport department for the cancellation of their permits.The traffic police zeroed in on these 312 buses when they saw that in last two years, 553 buses were involved in fatal road accidents. An exhaustive study conducted by traffic police, which analysed data of 2001 and 2002, revealed that 13 out of 312 were each involved in two fatal accidents while the remaining 299 had caused one fatal mishap. ''These 312 buses, when put together, have committed 5,030 offences in the past two years,'' said Arun Kampani, deputy commissioner of police (New Delhi range traffic) who conducted the study. This means an average of 16 offences per bus. This is the first such study where buses have been identified with bad driving records, both in terms of accidents and traffic violations. ''These buses, their owners and drivers constitute a group who have either killed or endangered lives of people on the roads and are chronic traffic offenders,'' Kampani said. The police officials feel that these buses are like hardcore criminals, or 'history-sheeters' in typical police parlance.