- Only the fools disobey traffic rules
- Five minutes late on the road is better than five weeks bedridden in a ward or to be forever late
- Drive like hell and you will be there
- Bike/car racing is prohibited
Messages such as these have been put up by police along VIP Road and across Salt Lake and New Town.
A senior officer in the Bidhannagar commissionerate said the basic motto is to encourage safe driving and improve road safety.
The move follows multiple accidents, including two fatal ones, on VIP Road and in New Town in the past month.
Bidhannagar police commissioner Gaurav Sharma said they were installing signage in the areas covered by all nine traffic guards of the commissionerate.
“We are writing innovative and catchy slogans on the signboards to draw the attention of motorists and to drive home a message. Awareness is the key here. Apart
from organising road safety workshops, we are focussing on putting up signage to
reach out to a larger number of people and encourage them to drive safely,” said Sharma.
In February, a Class VII student at The Newtown School died after falling off her mother’s scooter and coming under the wheels of a dump truck.
Earlier this month, a 30-year-old Behala resident who was riding pillion on her friend’s motorcycle fell after the rider lost control of the bike and was crushed under the wheel of a truck.
The rider was trying to overtake the sand-laden truck when he lost control of the two-wheeler after its handlebar snagged on the bigger vehicle’s body near the Biswa Bangla Gate intersection.
On March 7, The Telegraph spotted the messages at nearly every island on Broadway — the road that leads to EM Bypass from Salt Lake.
Similar signboards were also seen along VIP Road — at the Lake Town and Kaikhali intersections and at the Haldirams bus stop.
In New Town, too, such signboards have been put up — at the crossings and on the divider of the Major Arterial Road (MAR), a 10.5km-long road that cuts through the township.
A senior officer in the Bidhannagar commissionerate said their workshops on traffic safety, especially involving two-wheeler riders, and drivers of trucks, buses, app cabs and taxis will continue.
This newspaper has reported about such workshops organised by the Bidhannagar police. At those sessions, the police explained how two-wheelers should overtake heavy vehicles keeping in mind the blind spots of the drivers of those vehicles.
Blind spots are the spots that a driver of a heavy vehicle cannot see from his seat — directly or through rear-view mirrors.
Traffic police personnel in all traffic guards under the commissionerate have also been asked to step up surveillance so that errant motorists can be prosecuted, another senior traffic police officer said.