Police to install speed cams at 40 more spots

Kolkata: In a bid to control overspeeding by errant drivers across the city, Kolkata Police will soon install speed cameras in 40 locations, whereas Red Light Violation Detector (RLVD) cameras will be installed at 100 more locations.

According to sources, speed cameras are installed at 21 locations across the Kolkata Police jurisdiction at present, which have been successful in prosecuting drivers violating the speed restriction norms. These speed cameras were installed after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced the Safe Drive Save Life (SDSL) campaign, which is being followed strictly till date.

Now, Kolkata Traffic Police has decided to install speed cameras in 40 more locations. The installing spots have been earmarked and soon the installation work will start.

Speed cameras are able to take snapshots of vehicle registration plates, even in the dark. It snaps the vehicle from behind and calculates the speed using the distance travelled within a certain time. The data is being fed to the central traffic database, from where citation cases are being sent to the vehicle owners via SMS.

Apart from speed cameras, RLVD cameras have been installed at several important and major intersections in the last few months. After those got operational, the number of signal violations has come down significantly. Keeping this in mind, Kolkata Traffic Police will install RLVD cameras in 100 more locations soon.

"We are bound to ensure safe journey for the people and thus we are taking necessary steps to curb road accidents. Our appeal to the citizens is to please follow the road norms for both drivers and pedestrians to stay safe," said Pandey Santosh, Deputy Commissioner (Traffic) of Kolkata Police.

Recently, Banerjee informed through Twitter that the number of road accidents has reduced by 12 percent across the city in 2018, compared to 2017. According to police sources, after commencing the SDSL campaign, several attempts by Kolkata Police were successful in curbing road accidents.

Among them, a special drive against violation of speed regulations was an important one. In several places traffic guards could be seen conducting speed check using speed gun and prosecuting the errant drivers.

After taking over the charge of Commissioner of Police (CP), Kolkata, Anuj Sharma has also stated that traffic would be one of the important issues on which he wants to emphasize.

According to sources, a few days after taking charge as the CP, Kolkata, Sharma instructed the traffic officials to conduct an inquiry for each of the accidents to find the cause and the way to curb accidents in the said area during a review meeting.

He even asked the senior officials to visit the accident spot and submit a report on the same.