Eye in the sky to catch traffic offenders in Noida

Noida: Aiming to curb recurring road accidents on fast-paced expressways, the Gautam Buddh Nagar district traffic department has started issuing online automatically-generated challans for vehicles driving in wrong lanes.

Officials said that in the first phase of the project, they will penalise heavy motor vehicles such as buses and trucks driving in lanes other those marked for heavy vehicles on the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway and Yamuna Expressway.

As per a senior police officer, offenders will be penalised with the help of highway traffic management system (HTMS) at Noida-Greater Noida e-way and cameras installed at the Yamuna e-way. These cameras will capture images of vehicle driving in wrong lanes and the challan will be directly sent to their address.

"We have started monitoring and penalising not only over-speeding vehicles, but those driving in wrong lanes as well. Initially, we have been issuing challans to heavy and commercial vehicles driving in the top lane/overtaking lane at the Noida-Greater Noida E-way. The same will be followed for the Yamuna Expressway as well," said Anil Kumar Jha, Superintendent of Police (Traffic), Gautam Buddh Nagar.

He added, "The move is aimed to put a curb on road accidents as over-speeding and wrong lane driving are the two major reasons behind accidents."

The officer further said that a total of 155 vehicles have been penalised for driving in wrong lane since the new system has come into action.

"The automatic challan generation system has been started on Monday. Forty two vehicles were penalised on Monday, 58 vehicle were identified and issued challan on Tuesday, while 55 vehicles driving in the wrong lane, were penalised on Wednesday," a senior police officer said.

Officials also informed that if a vehicle is penalised for over speeding for the first time, a fine of Rs 400 is imposed, while for wrong lane driving a fine of Rs 500 will be levied.