ARE WE NEXT ?!

FROM THE TIMES OF INDIA_10/11/2008

No one to rein in 3-wheeled menace

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Kolkata: Aniruddha Guha was sitting on the driver’s right side on Saturday afternoon when he was thrown and run over by a truck. Had police cared to enforce the law, a young life would have been saved. For, it is illegal to seat any passenger in the front seat of an auto. That’s only the beginning of the long list of law violations by auto drivers who are a law unto themselves. From using the carcinogenic kaata tel to fixing fares on their own, a large section of auto-wallahs breaks every rule in the book. The highly unionized auto drivers challenge the government and get away with it. Police officers admit the threewheelers are the most unsafe passenger carriers in the city. The anarchy is largely driven by economics, says transport economist Barun Sarkar. There is no regulation on how many autos should ply on a particular route. The result: terrible competition in a swarm of three-wheeled menaces that cares nothing law, or life and limb. Hence, the cut-throat brazenness of auto drivers. Each of them takes risks to pick up an extra passenger. So, overspeeding, lane violation, over-loading have all become endemic with the city’s auto-fleet, Sarkar said.

The driving skill of auto drivers is highly questionable. “A couple of years ago, we did a drive against illegal autos. We were shocked to find that at least 25 per cent do not have licence. Most learn on the job, which is dangerous. They do not know road regulations. So they do not even understand, if they violate any traffic rule. The moment we prosecute them, they burst into anger,” said a traffic sergeant. The biggest violation is taking passengers on the right side of the driver. In the front, there is hardly any space for an extra passenger, let alone two. “Once you take a passenger on the right, the driver gets no elbow room. This cramps up the driver and is in itself dangerous. Besides, the passenger on the right gets exposed to being hit by vehicles,” said a public vehicles department official. The administration’s reluctance to act against errant auto drivers has only emboldened them. “In 2003, police and the transport department tried to put holograms on the legal autos so that action can be taken against illegal ones. We were stunned when we found that a large number of autos, which were illegally brought from Delhi, were given registration after changing their chassis and engine number. But we had to retract under political pressure,” said a former assistant commissioner of police.

“Despite several attempts, autos have largely remained untouchable for law enforcing agencies. Even though most of the autos are illegal, they thrive under Citu patronage,” said Sarkar.

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