Soon, pay fine for covering e’way stretches too quickly

LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh transport department is planning to put in place a time-bound traffic management plan on the Agra-Lucknow and the Yamuna Expressways in a bid to put the brakes on overspeeding, the single biggest cause of accidents there, a senior official said.

Under the proposed system, a minimum time will be stipulated for drivers to cover a particular distance.

A fine will be imposed on the one who reaches the destination before time.

“We are exploring the possibility of introduction of timebound traffic management system on the Yamuna Expressway and the Agra-Lucknow Expressway to control accidents due to rash driving,” transport commissioner P Guruprasad said.

“Under this system, a new bar coded receipt will be issued at the entry point on the toll plaza and once the receipt is generated the vehicle’s time count will start.

The receipt will be scanned at the exit point and the monitor will show instantly the time taken by the vehicle to reach that point,” he explained.

Such a system, according to Guruprasad, already successfully existed on a road connecting Tirupati Balaji temple in Andhra Pradesh.

He said while a final decision on time-bound travel rule was yet to be taken, the work with regard to installation of speed radars on the expressways was already in progress.

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath has issued directions for installation of such radars on the expressways. He also ordered safety audits on the expressways.

These directives were issued at the state road safety council meeting convened by him a few months ago.

Once the new system was introduced, the installation of speed radars would be able to detect a vehicle over-speeding throughout the stretch as well as when a vehicle resorted to overspeeding and then slowed down to be able to take the prescribed travel time once the new system was introduced, another transport official said.

The move is being considered due to a growing number of mishaps on the two expressways.

The traffic department's road accident data for 2017 showed that 213 traffic accidents occurred on the expressways in the state, killing 280 people and injuring 347 others, 309 of them grievously.

The same analytical report shows that 14,276 of the 38,783 total road accidents were attributed to overspeeding.

“The maximum speed limit fixed for cars on the expressways is 100 kmph, but most of the users tend to overspeed out of (a sense of) adventure that the beautiful, jam-free expressways provide,” said the official.

The time-bound travel plan, if implemented, would certainly deter people from resorting to rash driving, he added.