The Bhutanese Leading the way.
And those are not the death toll accounts from a natural catastrophe or that from a massive crime scene.
It would actually come as a bit of a revelation that an everyday thing such as commuters, highways and pedestrians could amount to such nauseous concoction of unending paper works and worse, irrational death and injuries.
The point in heated conversation here is the Traffic rules and regulations, those who break them, and those who are injured or killed because of those who break them.
No matter how much the persistence, or the almost religious efforts traffic officials have made to adopt different kind of strategies to ensure safe road for the drivers somehow, someone somewhere always seems to be failing.
So, said the superintendent of Thimphu traffic division, Major Pasang Dorji.
Till end of September, 2012, a total of 14, 281 cases on traffic violation were recorded with the Thimphu traffic division with 80 deaths caused by accidents across the country.
Going by the figures maintained with the Thimphu traffic on the traffic violations, Major Pasang Dorji said that despite all the efforts made by the division, drivers still do not follow the rules, land up in accident and at times kill others and sometimes themselves.
“Until and unless I do not go from the present post of Traffic SP, I am here to fix the traffic offenders. Drivers are not following the traffic rules,” the Major said.
The number of cases recorded with the Thimphu traffic division till 30 September, 2012, show that in a span of four years since 2009, traffic violation has increased by almost three folds.
A total of 3230 cases of traffic violations were reported in 2009, then in following year 3377 cases were registered and in 2010, it increased to 4175.
The traffic OC explained that it depends on the committee members comprising Road Safety and Transport Authority (RSTA), Ministry of Information and Communications (MoIC) and traffic, for how long an individual can be held back from driving after license cancellations.
A total of 278 licenses were single-punched due to drunk driving from the capital this year till September end and 18 licenses were double-punched while 9 learner licenses and one driving license were cancelled.
The OC said that the breath analyzer has benefited the Traffic officials to monitor drunk drivers.
The limited reading on the breath analyzer is 80 milligram per 100 Ml only for those ordinary driving license holders whose license is more than three years old.
Interestingly, for the commercials drivers, heavy and medium vehicle drivers, even if the reading is just one milligram then it is considered drunk driving.
Clarifying people’s complaints about the breath analyzer mouth piece’s repeated use by different people and multiple mouths, the OC said “For each individual, we use new mouth piece to detect the consumption of alcohol”.
He said now that traffic officials are extremely serious about the traffic violation, more cases are being reported.
In the country today there are 81,241 driving licenses and 12,792 professional driving license issued.
With the increase in the number of the vehicles the number of deaths by or in vehicle accidents also increased. The numbers of deaths of people due to accidents increased from 77 deaths in 2009 to 104 in 2011 and till September this year, 80 cases of death have occurred across the country.
The injury rate has also increased drastically from 579 in 2009 to 623 cases in 2011 and 510 cases as of September, 2012.
With the installation of five CCTV cameras in different locations of the capital the Thimphu Traffic unit hopes to see some changes in the scenario. The pilot project of installing the CCTV was done on 11 October with the help of Ugyen Trading.
Chencho Dema
The attitude of passang dorji is bad, how can he say he will fix people. His job sounds more of a punishment rather than correction. His thoughts are negative rather than positive.
A total of 3230 cases of traffic violations were reported in 2009, then in following year 3377 cases were registered and in 2010, it increased to 4175.
This is beacuse the Traffic personnels are not following the rules uniformly. For example when we go to paro we dont see drivers making double parking as well as all cars are parked properly in parking area. This is beacuse the Incharge of that area is very particular and checks time n again. If there is any defaulter they will be fined with out any excuse but place like P/ling Drivers hardly follow traffic rules and traffic police dont care too as the head it self is not active in such cases. He just attain some complains and if the defaulter is his friends or relatives he excuese them with out any action.
the following might help.
1. stop issuing licenses in black. There are people, especially the ones who conduct the driving tests. People just have to pay Nu 6000 and you don’t even have to know how to drive to get a driving license. Some of the traffic police also do it in partnership with the people who conduct the driving test.
2. The Traffic SP must change is attitude if he is the only man fit for this job. Else someone more people friendly and with a little more wisdom must replace him. 3. There is another traffic lieutenant called Kencho who acts like a real barbarian.
He should be trained in communication skills. 3. All the road users, both pedestrians and drivers, must learn some civic sense, and unlearn their animal traits.