New road humps unscientific, say police, MCC chiefs

New road humps unscientific, say police, MCC chiefs

Mangaloretoday News Network

Mangalore, March 23: Seven roads humps on either side of the four-lane concrete road spanning 2.5-km stretch from Lady Hill to Kottara Chowki is the answer that Mangalore city police have come up with, to tackle cases of road accidents. The Mangalore city corporation is laying these road humps as per the suggestion given by city traffic police, and has taken up the work in full swing during the past week. And these newly laid road humps are yet to get a coat of paint.

What makes this exercise interesting is that both city police chief Seemanth Kumar Singh and Mangalore City Corporation commissioner K N Vijay Prakash admitting that road humps laid are unscientific. Vijayprakash told  that the civic body has set up road humps based on recommendations made by the traffic police. The road humps definitely need to be painted and efforts are on in this direction and will be completed at the earliest, he said.

The city traffic police in conjunction with the civic body will put up sign boards indicating the presence of humps, said Seemanth Kumar. Unpainted humps pose a far greater risk to motorists, he told TOI, adding that ordinary paint does not last long. "We are trying to use rubberized paint that lasts longer," he said, adding that the traffic police will take up the issue of making the road humps more scientific as specified in the Indian Road Congress.

V S Acharya, former home minister in reply to a question in the legislative council in July last, had said as per the Indian Road Congress (IRC), an ideal road hump should be four inches high and 11.5 feet wide. However, not many speed-breakers are designed as per specifications, Acharya had admitted.

Seemanth, too, agreed that rubberized rumblers would be ideal to cut down the speed of vehicles as they approach important road junctions and intersections.

Vijayprakash said: "I have instructed the engineering section to put up blinkers at places where the civic body has constructed road humps to warn motorists. At present, city police has set up road barricades just ahead of newly constructed road humps, which invariably forces motorists to slow down." Seemanth admitted that he receives petitions from people seeking road humps in their locality. "They warn to launch an agitation if we don’t oblige," he adds.  TOI