Of jumping from Green to Red : Red carding motorists
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: January 08, 2024 -

Imphal certainly does not need this. Conked out traffic signals with no indications that corrective measures have been taken up to fix the defunct traffic lights.

Long before Manipur went up in flames in the evening of May 3, 2023, long before Manipur had even started talking about the high sounding and pleasant to hear concept Smart City, The Sangai Express had talked and talked about the need for the motorists to develop some civic sense and not come under the impression that the traffic signals put up at different traffic points are mere decorative pieces.

It was along this line that this newspaper had stressed that driving is something much more than just kicking or pulling the clutch, putting the vehicle into gear and slowly releasing the clutch to put the vehicle into motion.

Along with this, The Sangai Express had also urged the need to obey traffic rules and Red means stop, Orange means slow down and Green means proceed.

The timer put up along with the traffic lights can give all the motorists the needed indication to get ready to move or when to slow down so as to bring the moving vehicle to a complete stop and in doing this to also understand that the Zebra crossing is meant for the pedestrians and is not to be blocked by the vehicle which has come to a stop on being Redded.

Basic, simple rules and when the traffic lights conk out or develop some mechanical snag, then every motorists ought to obey the manual signals of the traffic police personnel on duty.

Such measures means not only steps taken up to check road accidents, which can range from colliding or running down pedestrians or scratching other vehicles, but also ensure smoother traffic flow.

It was with a reason why some concerned citizens of the land had gathered and formed a Traffic Group on Facebook and this was much before WhatsApp had appeared.

The reason being the need for everyone to stick to traffic rules and ensure that the members at least do not encourage under aged driving, reckless driving such as needless honking, overtaking from the left and parking anywhere according to one’s convenience, never mind the fact that such acts could severely inconvenience others.

That the said Facebook Group did not elicit much positive response from the public is something else, but the point of greater importance is to note that at least some conscientious group of folks had come together to raise awareness on the fact that driving is much more than just kicking the vehicle into life and putting it into motion by activating the gear and accelerator.

The double decker news headline, ‘Erratic traffic lights at Keishampat traffic point leave many ‘caught in Red’ and ‘No timers, no yellow lights subject motorists to ‘fines’ which appeared on the January 6 publication of The Sangai Express is a statement on how motorists and anyone out on the roads of Imphal can be caught on the wrong foot or can be Red carded.

A term synonymous with games like football or hockey, but which can come close to the understanding of how motorists can be caught plumb in the middle of a traffic light, which changes from Green to Red without any warning, that is without the necessary timer which alerts the driver to slow down and be ready to bring his or her vehicle to a complete halt.

The working of the traffic light is not under the Traffic Police, as The Sangai Express has been explained, but comes under the Smart City project or the agency which comes under the said project but to think that an important traffic point like the one at Keishampat has been functioning without the mandatory Orange light for well over 8 months is something hard to digest.

One January 7, the defunct timer seems to have been fixed, for reports have come in that one can now see the timer ticking away.

This is good and fine but the important point is the need for timely repair whenever any traffic light goes kaput.

And while on the traffic point at Keishampat, it is important to study whether the traffic lights are easily visible to the motorists coming from the Raj Bhavan side and moving towards Airport road and this is more so when there is a big, tall vehicle in front such as a Truck.