No excuse left for motorists violating lane-driving rules

KOLKATA: After preaching the importance of sticking to lanes during the Road Safety Week earlier this year, the Kolkata traffic police has begun marking lanes across all major arterial roads in Kolkata.
As a pilot project, the traffic department has marked around 10 roads – EM Bypass, Diamond Harbour Road, APC Road and AJC Bose Road, amongst them – with two/four lanes (depending on the road width) for motorists.
The stretch between VIP Bazaar and Ruby Hospital on EM Bypass on Friday wore a fresh coat of paint with clearly demarcated bus bays. Similarly, even the more constricted Chetla Bridge has seen the intelligent use of road furniture to demarcate lanes.
Cops will pull up drivers found indulging in improper lane-changing, hogging the road between streams of traffic and not driving within the designated lane. “We are not forbidding people from changing lanes. But then lane-changing should be done with caution and proper signalling. Unwarranted lane-changing should be avoided as safety of other road users is compromised,” a Lalbazar officer said.
The police say they have even begun prosecuting those who are violating lane rules. “Those violating the lane rules near crossings will be the first to be booked,” he said, adding that awareness building and prosecution will go hand in hand.
“We used to slap laneviolation charges, but motorists would argued that there was no clear lane demarcation. Hence the need to manually mark the lanes,” said a Bypass traffic sergeant.
KK Kapila from International Road Federation said, “The challenge for police will be to get vehicle users, especially bike riders to follow the rules.”