By John B Monteiro
Mangaluru, Jul 5: "People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law; and those who have most to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous," said Edmund Burke (1729 – 1797), an Irish statesman born in Dublin; author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher, who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain.
File Photo
After adventure of buying a car, or two-wheeler for that matter, parking it is the most challenging chore for vehicle owners. They can’t look forward to acche din as laws, rules and technology are getting into an unholy alliance to enforce new laws and rules that envisage prohibitive fines and jail terms. Adding to their misery are technological tools like CCTV cameras and wheel locks. But, first the facts on the Mangalore scene as published in the media on June 30, 2015 under the heading “Police clamp down on traffic violators.”
Parking your vehicle haphazardly or at no-parking zones? Think again. Mangaluru City Traffic Police (MCTP) will immobilize your vehicle by clamping wheel locks. Taking a note of the callousness on part of vehicle owners in parking vehicles on footpaths and roadsides, especially along the concreted stretches in the city, MCTP has decided to intensify its drive against errant vehicle owners.
City police chief S Murugan in an advisory posted on the police website noted that the practice among owners to park vehicles on footpaths or alongside kerbs of cement concrete roads in the city is constantly on the rise. This causes inconvenience to not only vehicle users, but also to pedestrians, Murugan said, adding police will clamp wheel locks on such vehicles and collect fines from their owners.
Murugan separately told media-persons that 55 CCTV cameras have already been installed within the limits of city police commissionerate by the police department. “The department plans to install 60 more such cameras to book violators and bring down such violations, During the last year, we had registered 1,05,000 cases for traffic rule violations, and collected fine of Rs 1.8 crore. This year around, already 55,000 cases have been registered, and a sum of Rs 60 lakh has been collected in the form of fine,” he also stated. that the department's firm stand to take stern action against vehicles which are parked overlooking rules, by making use of CCTV footage.
Uday Nayak, assistant commissioner of police (traffic), said the unit has 120 wheel locks. "We have plans to procure 140 more wheel locks". MCTP has also started hanging big placards on the rear view mirror on the driver's entry side of vehicles to indicate that police have clamped wheel locks on their vehicles. Explaining reasons for the move, Nayak said in many instances vehicle owners have moved the vehicles not noticing the wheel lock damaging the lock and the wheel. The placard has the official mobile number of the police inspector concerned. Vehicle owners can contact the officer and pay a fine of Rs 100 to get the locks released. The lock with adjustable clamp can be used to lock wheels of almost all types of vehicles starting from a scooter to goods tempo van.
"Certain influential people not owning their mistakes have exerted pressure on senior officials and got the locks released without paying the fine as well”, Nayak said without going into details.
This is to be expected because the rich and powerful flaunt their high connections which tendency was noted even 2500 years ago when Anacharsis, Sythian philosopher, told Solon while writing his laws: ‘Written laws are like spiders’ webs, and will like them only entangle and hold the poor and the week, while the rich and powerful easily break through them”. Much later. Oliver Goldsmith (1728- 1774), Irish poet and prose writer, reiterated the point when he said:”Laws grind the poor, and the rich man rules the law”.
That is why at nakhabandis, traffic islands and round-abouts, the police will stop two wheelers, low-end cars and goods vehicles and do not risk stopping high-end sedans whose occupants could be well connected to the high and mighty in the government and could easily manage a suspension or transfer of the cop enthusiastic about enforcing traffic laws. Yet, traffic laws and rules are multiplying despite their doubtful efficacy having been foretold by Terence Publius, Roman comic poet (BC185-159): “The strictest law sometimes becomes the harshest injustice”. This is specially for the poor and helpless. Yet, we keep on adding laws and rules. The enhanced fines provide greater margins for cops to negotiate non-official deals. If the fine is Rs 100, as now, is enhanced to Rs 1000, as proposed, the window for negotiations is very wide and lucrative.
If the cops were merely punitive and officially fined the vehicle-owners, it would mean funds for the exchequer and the citizens at large stand to benefit. But, often the punitive powers are converted into acquisitive powers for personal corrupt gains. Massive traffic flow, like in Mumbai or Bangalore, is a great opportunity to line the pockets of corrupt cops. The cops who direct traffic at busy junctions, standing in sun or rain for up to ten hours a day is a subject of public pity. But, less is known about some of the black sheep among them who selectively stop vehicles, pull them away from public gaze and collect their booty. In Mumbai, for instance, many a corrupt cop catches the drivers on the wrong side of the law and by evening marches home with pockets bulging with currency notes. There is some ethical strand even in collecting such tainted money. If you are caught for an offence, say for not wearing safety helmet or not carrying licence, you don’t risk paying at multiple check points. The cop who first catches you gives you the password for the day, say ‘dog’ or ‘cat’ or ‘Coca-Cola’, and this is honoured by cops who halt you subsequently.
How to you switch from punitive and acquisitive to curative and facilitative cops? Take the case of Mangaluru, for instance. If you visit, AJ Hospital at Kuntikana, the campus has hundreds of vehicles neatly parked with entry and exits kept clear by traffic marshals. All the parking lots are tightly marked and the driver can easily manage comfortable parking. Mangaluru’s artery roads can easily replicate this by marking parking spaces separately for four wheelers and two wheelers – and have unemployed youth to manage stretches of roads. This is important for a haphazardly parked two-wheeler can foreclose the space for four-wheeler parking.
This brings us to the other problem of foreclosing parking lot by shop-owners and business entities by putting up boards indicating exclusive reservation for customers having business dealings with XYZ shop or office. This is acceptable if the space is exclusively owned by a party – as the large foreground of Milagres Church in the parking space-starved Hampankatta area. But the street fronts of buildings are set-offs given under building laws and the building owners or occupiers have no legal rights for such parking spaces. Yet, such people, often employing a watchman, threaten to deflate the tyres. The cops should prohibit such exclusive illegal reservation so that the available parking lot is optimally used.
There is a way out of this illegal reservation. When paid parking was introduced in the original business district of Mumbai, Ballard Estate, the business entities who exclusively owned buildings, like L&T House, bought the parking space abutting the three sides of the buildings by paying the parking fee for the whole day so that their employees and visitors can park their vehicles without daily hassles. Now the same concept is being extended to residential areas where old buildings do not have captive parking garages or compounds are not able to cope with the vehicles of all flat owners. Such residents can buy monthly parking lots at a price for night parking from 8PM to 8AM when business visitors to the area go away to their residences.
Incidentally the vehicle parking problem is not unique to Mangaluru. For instance, for the last few years, Bangaluru has been showing the country the way on traffic enforcement. It has installed 173 surveillance cameras, 5 static enforcement cameras and 500 portable digital cameras to keep an eye out for rule breakers. Nearly 2,000 cases are booked every day there using digital surveillance. Challans are issued with handheld devices and an online gateway enables and facilitates electronic payment of fines.
The bottom-line is we need a paradigm change in facing our parking problems, a shift from punitive/acquisitive to curative/facilitative environment. Any takers?
Veteran journalist and author, John B Monteiro now concentrates on Editorial Consultancy, having recently edited the autobiography of a senior advocate, history and souvenir to mark the centenary of Catholic Association of South Canara and currently working on the history/souvenir to mark the platinum jubilee of Kanara Chamber of Commerce & Industry. He is also Editorial Consultant and content supplier for Vishal Jagriti, the English monthly of All India Catholic Union, now published from Mangaluru.