User talk:Towingmenace

TOWING MENACE

Satish Mathur, the Joint Commissioner of Police-Traffic encourages and exhorts his staff to go out there and collect more fines. More and more the traffic dept has become a body which is interested only in filling up the coffers of the government and contractors. The lethargy, indifference and total abdication of their primary responsibility which is managing smooth flow of traffic was so glaringly evident during the recent deluge.

It is a well known fact that Bhaudaji Road becomes a very important conduit when flooding takes place at King’s Circle. Year after year, we see a huge traffic snarl that takes hours and hours to clear up. For those familiar with the situation very well know that it’s not always the water logging that’s responsible for such traffic snarls. It is efficient traffic management at crucial bottlenecks on Bhaudaji Road that is so vital in ensuring the smooth flow of traffic. Despite the severity of the situation, you’ll seldom find any traffic cops manning these crucial bottlenecks. This year’s severity is very well known. Despite that, there was hardly any presence of the cops where it is required the most. They were all relaxing in their chowky near Aurora. There was no leadership shown from the officer in-charge in personally supervising and delegating responsibilities. The reason is not very hard to fathom. There were no fines to be collected, no money to be made, officially or otherwise. This required working hard in difficult circumstances. Most of the traffic cops have been spoilt so rotten and emboldenend by the fact that there’s nobody to hold them accountable. Lethargy, indifference and negligence of duty has spread among the ranks. This has to change. As citizens we have to confront them and not tolerate such an attitude.

For a start we can tackle the towing menace. For quite some time, it has become a total extortion racket. When Dr. Pascricha introduced towing in Mumbai, it’s purpose was to act as a very strong deterrent and discipline motorists in parking sensibilities. Over years, it has entirely lost its main purpose and become a great money-spinner for the traffic dept and more importantly the contractors who run the towing service. It’s no secret that the officers have a stake / get a cut from the contractors.

As motorists have started to become more and more disciplined and careful about parking sensibilities, the towing bandwagon needs newer ways to keep filling up the numbers. Whether the vehicles are genuinely causing obstruction to the smooth flow of traffic or pedestrian movement has become totally irrelevant. Instead of concentrating on main routes with high density of traffic, they focus solely on numerous small lanes and bylanes which has got nothing to do with overall traffic situation. These innocuous small lanes and bylanes can manage by themselves, but the traffic dept wants to be custodians because of easy pickings.

Amongst the various offences listed under which a car can be towed away, the most notorious and controversial is corner parking. The traffic dept is very eager to extend this to all lanes and small bylanes whether it makes sense or not. Initially, they used to pick up cars from corners, but when that started drying up, they started entering inside the lanes and picking up vehicles even though the cars are genuinely parked in a straight manner and not causing any impediment whatsoever.

When confronted, they would just brandish the rule book and point out to a section pertaining to an offence. In corner parking case, the law says 15 metres from a corner. When it comes to enforcement, they are ever so keen to point to antiquated laws. Has anybody tried to examine the appropriateness in modern times? Why kill the hen that lays the golden goose !! Anybody whose car has been towed away from a corner is familiar with the reason dished out when they collect their car from the chowky. They would ask you to park leaving a car’s space from the corner. Is that any benchmark?

If they are so keen on enforcement, we need to confront them with their duties first. •	As they have No Parking boards as objective reference points, they similarly need to define where a corner starts and ends. •	They need to have solid markings (surprisingly a city like Panjim has such systematic markings). •	We need objective reference points and not subjective interpretation and adhocism about what constitutes corner parking and what does not.

We also have to share the blame, as we are equally indiscliplined. Furthermore we have allowed them to carry on thus far without any collective protest. We need to confront them with putting their house in order first, and then enforce laws. Not the other way around. We will not put up with such abject surrender of responsibility and allow them to continue to run something akin to an extortion racket. Isolated incidents of confronation will not change anything. Nor will our pretension that it does not affect us or just shrugging our shoulders and being meek or indifferent.

This is an attempt to kickstart a collective process which needs to snowball, so that some constructive changes can take place. Each one of us have a role to play. It will be a great shame if we were to lose momentum and energy. Remember, it was the collective protest / angst that drove away the ridiculous and money milking Pay and Park scheme in Matunga and Wadala. That time it was the BMC which was in cohoots with the contractors.

What each one of us can do:

•	ACT. If you concur with the views above, ACT. •	As a starting point, spread this message around. Photocopy as many sheets and pass it around. •	Communicate. A webspace has been specially created for this, so all of us can contribute ideas/suggestions and everybody can view the same.