Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is one of the most prominent businesswomen active on Twitter. Shaw tweets are often received well received by the public, but some have caused outrage too. The latest one by the eccentric Biocon chief over the traffic rule enforcement in Bengaluru has left many divided.
"If our traffic police can enforce lane discipline like they do in Chennai & Mumbai half of Bengaluru's traffic gridlock will be eliminated. All they need is to dent the bonnets of erring drivers with lathis n then no one will err @blrcitytraffic @CMofKarnataka @BPACofficial, " Shaw said on Twitter.
However, not everyone is convinced about Shaw's suggestion for Bengaluru traffic policemen to damage public property and create a sense of fear among car driver to follow lane discipline. Most people suggest increasing the fine and proper awareness drive would suffice.
While others supported Shaw's view to dent the car's bonnet and one of them, a resident of Mumbai concurred that the cops do take extreme measures including damaging the headlights, but in certain localities only.
Shaw's Twitter message seems to be written in a spurt of anger travelling today on the jam-packed Bengaluru roads. We believe self restrain from policemen is required in a situation like these, as we have seen reports of drivers under the influence of alcohol have attacked the former, despite being polite. If their car gets damaged and the person driving it is influential with political backing, he or she may cause physical harm to Policemen or themselves by driving recklessly.
It can be noted that the traffic violations in 2018 have come down drastically compared to the previous year. Major offences such as Drunk Under the Influence of alcohol (DUI) in 2018 was 53,092 against 73,741 in 2017. Cases of Reckless Driving has come down from 1,51726 to 98,497.
It is said that social media campaign both online and print by Bengaluru Traffic Police is one of the reasons for the improvement in lane discipline in the city. Also, it conducts awareness programmes in the schools under the Students Association for Road Safety (SARS) Initiative.
Bengaluru Traffic Police's verified Twitter handle has close to 547,000 followers. It has been quite successful in attracting youth with the use of memes of contemporary pop culture like Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad and even local movie dialogues offering infotainment on social media channels.
