Gurugram: Curbs on vehicle speed from June onwards to reduce accidents

To reduce the number of accidents, the traffic police and the district road safety committee are working on revising the speed limits of major roads and also instituting speed limits on roads where none exist at present, officials said on Friday.

The traffic police officials and district road safety committee’s representatives have started auditing all major stretches in Gurugram to finalise the limits, said officials, adding that such an exercise is taking place for the first time.

Several major stretches in the city such as St Thomas Marg, San Felipe Marg, and Dharm Marg among others do not have a speed limit, they added.

Ravinder Singh Tomar, deputy commissioner of police (DCP) traffic, said that the audit will be completed by the end of May, and speed limit signs dedicated for each stretch will be erected in June. Following this, speed interceptors will also be placed at all those stretches randomly for checking speeding, Tomar said.

At present, only three stretches — Golf Course Road, Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway, and Gurgaon-Faridabad Road — have speed interceptors.

Two more speed interceptors have been put up at two locations (chosen on a random basis) in the city, Tomar said, adding that the traffic police officials observed that this year, around 30% accidents so far took place due to speeding, and hence, the traffic police and the road safety committee decided to keep a check on speed violations across the city on a larger scale.

“Our traffic marshalls on the ground observed that many accident cases, even on arterial roads, took place due to speeding. The matter was discussed during district road safety committee meetings as well. So, we decided to start auditing all major stretches in Gurugram, in coordination with road safety officers (RSOs) and the committee members,” said Tomar, highlighting that traffic marshalls observed instances of speeding at several stretches such as Vikas Marg, Netaji Subhash Marg, Sohna Road, Golf Course Extension Road, Southern Peripheral Road, and Dwarka Expressway among others.

The Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA), meanwhile, has been installing CCTV cameras at 90 key stretches in the city, through which the traffic police will monitor violations, including speeding, Tomar said.

At present, the Gurugram traffic police has imposed a generic speed limit across the city. The speed limit for cars on highways is 90 kilometre per hour (kmph), and for two-wheelers and heavy vehicles is 50kmph. On major municipal roads, it is 50kmph for cars and two-wheelers, and 30kmph for heavy vehicles. On state highways, it is 80kmph for cars, and 50kmph for two-wheelers and heavy vehicles.

The Gurugram traffic police fines a person ₹2,000 for speeding, and suspends the licence if he/she does the same for the third time. On an average, around 90 challans are issued for speeding per day, said the officials.

The Regional Transport Authority (RTA) officials, and representatives of Gurugram Vision Zero (GVZ) — a road safety programme of the district administration — are also taking part in the audit. “Auditing of all major stretches is underway. Putting speed limits at each stretch is the best way to deal with road safety, traffic management, as well as for enforcement,” said Sarika Panda Bhatt, programme lead of GVZ and member of the district road safety committee.

A specific speed limit for different stretches has led to confusion and protests in several cities across the country, said the officials.

Following protests over “incorrect fines for speeding ”, the Delhi traffic police in July 2020 announced speed limits for all major stretches in the Capital on its official website, and also created a separate email address where residents could challenge and verify fines imposed on them.

Sewa Ram, an urban transport systems design expert and a faculty member at the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA) in Delhi, said “the traffic police and district road safety committee need to be wary of not putting a low-speed limit, especially on arterial roads, as it can have a major impact on mobility, and trigger snarls”. “Arterial roads are meant for mobility. If there is a low-speed limit, it can lead to heavy congestion and severely impact the dispersal of vehicles. The traffic police and the committee should rather carry out a survey on all the accident cases that happened in the city in the past 12 months, and then decide crash-specific speed limits for the stretches,” said Ram.

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