By Richa Sharma and Sahil Makkar, IANS,
New Delhi : From this year when you are travelling down the capital’s roads at night and feel the need for speed, restrain yourself from pressing the accelerator – for the city traffic police will soon install radar guns to rein you in.
To keep a tab on the speed violations during the night, Delhi Police have decided to acquire state-of-the-art speed detection equipment with infra-red rays.
“The traffic police was handicapped and was not able to prosecute speed violators at night. In order to overcome this difficulty we have decided to acquire radar guns with night use capability,” Joint Commissioner (Traffic) S.N Shrivastava told IANS.
Delhi Police have already floated a tender in the international market for purchasing 15 radar guns by March this year. Each radar gun will cost Rs.2-3 million (Rs.20-30 lakhs) and will be positioned at important locations in the capital by April.
“In India radar guns will be used for the first time to keep a track on speed violations. Presently, the equipment is used in some western countries,” Shrivastava said.
In the proposed system the speed detection would be automatic and – without using wires – the data along with coloured digital image of the vehicle can be transmitted to a remote enforcement station up to one kilometre down the road.
“The equipment would be able to cover multiple lanes and would not need an operator to aim at the vehicle. It can take the clear image of a vehicle coming at any speed without any flash using infra-red rays,” Shrivastava said.
With the radar guns Delhi Police are confident of checking road accidents that take place during the night because of dangerous and drunken driving.
Police have also decided to acquire high capacity cranes that can lift heavy vehicles weighing 15 to 20 tonnes.
“In accidents involving heavy vehicles it becomes difficult to clear the road fast due to unavailability of high capacity cranes. So we have decided to acquire them by the end of the year,” Shrivastava said.
All the Delhi traffic police vehicles will now be equipped with the Global Positioning System (GPS) facility for a quicker response during a traffic jam or accident.
“Through GPS facility we will be able to locate the traffic vehicles nearest to the incident or traffic jam location and they can be directly diverted to the spot for clearing the road,” Shrivastava said.
The traffic police are also introducing e-tickets as a part of their modernisation initiative.
“Officers will be provided hand- held electronic devices for issuing tickets to traffic offenders on the spot. The device will be capable of retrieving relevant data relating to the violating vehicles or the driver from the database of the traffic police,” Shrivastava said.