The Mumbai traffic police seem to be all out to check the rate of road accidents in the city.
Troubled by at least two cases of accidents being reported from prominent junctions every month due to hindrances in the visibility of drivers, the traffic police department, has now asked the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to get rid of all plants along the median at Rajni Patel Chowk near Haji Ali. Acting promptly to the request, the BMC chopped around 45 trees there on Wednesday.
The BMC had recently taken a policy decision to give Mumbai the green ‘London’ look by undertaking a city-wide drive to beautify the median and plant colourful trees on them.
However, according to deputy commissioner of police traffic Harish Baijal, the plants block the visibility and instead act as a hindrance for the drivers. “We have asked the BMC to remove anything that comes in the line of vision of drivers to avoid accidents,” he said.
As the line of vision differs for every driver because of the height of the vehicle, a request has been made to have either small plants or keep the passage of almost 10-20 meter clear from a signal.
“When a car needs to take a right turn or U-turn, the driver is unable to see the signal because of these obstructions. The main cause of accident is when a person does not get to see how many cars are there on the other side of the road and bumps into a vehicle. Hence, we wanted that a distance of 20 m should be maintained as safe distance for the driver to see the signal and the traffic on the other side of the road,” Baijal said.
Senior traffic inspector Rohidas Dusar of the Worli chowky said, “There were at least two accidents reported from Rajni Patel Chowk every month. People taking a U-turn at the signal would often meet with an accident and hit cars moving from Annie Beasant Road towards Haji Ali due to poor visibility on the other side. The decision has been taken purely for security reason of the passengers.”
However, M Yusuf Noorani, chairman Zodiac Clothing Co. Ltd, who is in charge of maintaining the trees at Worli, was a tad disappointed with the BMC move. “After consultation with the previous ward officer we had fixed the height of trees accordingly. They should have only trimmed them. Why did they have to hack them? The trees took almost seven years to grow.”
When contacted the G / south ward officer, S Gadkari said, “I will have to speak to the garden department and find out.”
