“Majority of the city residents give a wide berth to the traffic rules while driving on city roads, and their non-cooperative attitude is largely responsible for the traffic snarls in the city,” said Jasmel Singh, head constable of Ludhiana Traffic Police, who visits different colleges, schools and other institutesto create awareness about road safety and traffic rules.

“But it is surprising that our residents promptly tie their seat belts or wear helmets when they are to enter Chandigarh. I cannot understand why they do not observe traffic rules in their own city,” wondered Jasmel Singh.

While talking to Newsline, Jagmel Singh, who has been running this awareness campaign along with his colleague, Sukhdev Singh, also a head constable in Traffic Police, under the supervision of SP (Traffic), Ludhiana, Rupinder Singh, said, “The traffic problem of the city can be solved only if the public cooperates.

The non-cooperative attitude of people is largely responsible for frequent traffic bottlenecks at some places. For instance, 70% women and girls visit Ghumar Mandi every evening on their vehicles for shopping. They park their vehicles at wrong place and if a traffic cop requests them to park it in right way, their common excuse is ,”We will be back in just one minute.” And the worst happens when these women fail to reverse their vehicles and create traffic jams.”

But are’nt the city traffic cops also lax in regulating the traffic ?

About this Jagmel Singh said, “The maximum traffic rules violators are in the age group of 20-40 years. The other problems the traffic police face is that the violators drop names and flaunt their connections. They sometime even call up some leader or high official and manage to get away.”

... contd.