The popular saying, “speed thrills but kills” remains just a saying as the youth today have the luxury of owning super bikes, and the real power to vroom the street with sheer abandon. Recently, a 23-year-old bank employee and his 18-year-old cousin lost their lives after they rammed their KTM Duke Sports bike into a median near Ramamurthynagar. In order to avoid such incidents from happening in the future, the police department is looking to install LED display boards that will show the driver his speed in real time against the permitted limit.
This is being done with a hope that it will slow down these speed-crazy riders. This technology will be able to capture speed of vehicles 50 meters away. About 50 of such display boards are to be installed.
This technology will not only caution drivers but also reduce the death toll. Test engineer Sourabh Kumar Agarwal says, “Bengaluru traffic and its speeders are quite a nightmare for people who commute. I have seen many people speeding near the Silk Board flyover which has caused many fatalties. I think this new system is put into place to help caution drivers and inform them of the speed. Also, the police can catch such speed crazy riders. I think this will improve the traffic management system and ensure that riders do not exceed speed limit and decrease the death toll due to accidents.”
The pedestrians will benefit from this as it will help them walk without worries. Software engineer Navneet Gaurav says, “I feel that although this initiative will greatly help the rider, pedestrians too will benefit from this. I have seen a lot of riders speeding, not taking into account that there are people trying to cross the road. For people who want to use public transport near the Agrahara junction, they need to cross the road but this is not possible as the people come at high speeds from the flyover. Till today, the speed limit board has been just a hollow name, they are of no help. Atleast with this technology, riders can be cautioned about their speed.”
A lot of good ideas are thrown into the pit but what emerges successful depends on the way it is implemented. Entrepreneur Sheethal Prashanth says, “This initiative will be very useful as sometimes people tend to become rash while driving. Especially on airport road, I have seen people uncessarily dodge, race and this proves to be a problem to others. Till today the rider had the confidence that no one was looking, and hence it is ok to speed but now if this is implemented properly, it will greatly reduce rash drivers. To be a success, a trial and error method needs to be put into place to see if this technology is useful or not. People come up with good ideas but how it is taken will define its success rate”.
Sociologist Neeti Singh says, “The idea sounds good but I am doubtful about how this technology will work in areas where the line-up is quite large with more than 15-20 vehicles. I don’t think that this technology will be able to monitor the speed limit of every vehicle on the road, if it is able to do this, then that is great. I think the success of this technology depends on the results of the trial and errors done before implementing them fully.”
