Srinagar: Acting tough, the Traffic Department has blacklisted over 200 vehicles found indulging in lane discipline violations along the Srinagar-Jammu highway. The lane indiscipline leads to the massive traffic jams along the NH-44, which passes through difficult terrain mostly in the jurisdiction of Ramban district.
The Ramban administration has taken the stringent move under Section 201 and Section 184 of Motor Vehicles Act, to ensure smooth flow of the traffic especially the fruit (apple) carrying trucks coming from Kashmir towards other parts of the country, Assistant Regional Transport Officer (ARTO) Ramban Samrinder Singh told Rising Kashmir.
According to the law, once the vehicle is blacklisted all its services both offline and online stand barred from all regional transport offices across the nation, unless the offences are not cleared.
SSP Ramban Mohita Sharma, who was recently given the additional charge of SSP National Highway Traffic, said blacklisting of lane discipline violators continues in full force.
Giving further details about the blacklisting of vehicles, The ARTO Ramban confirmed that more than 200 vehicles have been blacklisted in the last few days under section 201 and 184 of Motor vehicles Act.
He said the fruit carrying trucks are of high priority and their movement doesn’t interrupt so the deterrence becomes necessary to fix the problem.
The Section 201 of MV Act deals with the penalty for causing obstruction to free flow of traffic. Under the act whoever keeps a disabled vehicle in any public place, in such a manner, so as to cause impediment to the free flow of traffic, shall be liable for penalty.
Similarly, Section 184 of the motor vehicle act deals with “dangerous driving”. According to the section, if a person is found driving causing danger or distress to the lives of nearby road users, violator will have to pay a fine of not less than Rs 1000.
Singh added that the fines under blacklisting are not high, but it causes a deterrence that helps them to ensure free flow of vehicular movement along the national highway.
Terming blacklisting as the out of box solution on the Highway, Singh said blacklisting becomes necessary as they won’t be able to line up the violators at the instant time of violation because it will lead to traffic jams.
“We are very happy that we have started this and we are the first to do it. If the lane discipline sense prevails, we will be able to make things much better on Srinagar-Jammu highway. So this is our out of box solution to ensure free and smooth traffic movement during this time,” he said.
The ARTO said they have done a survey along the Highway and it was observed that even ambulances stuck in the jams for hours due to lane jumps and other violations by drivers.
“Sometimes minor interventions lead to a change. Now we are happy that this initiative has created a deterrence and people have started following lane driving,” he added.
