#Truckspotting day #3

Wednesdays it seems are for Trucks.

Apart from the usual sighting, it was a sorry sight to see ambulance caught between two big truckers, and ambulance guys finding it hard to wriggle out of that situation.

Chaotic scene everywhere on Western Express Highway, no wonder we spend so much time on road wrestling for our own space.

Imagine plight of two wheelers, and other smaller vehicles.  All we ask for is a implementation of ban in entry of trucks during peak hours. Pictures below tell the entire story.

#Truckspotting development

Happy to share that we already have 6 people volunteering for it. Thats not much, but better then three (original team).

Have found traction with CNN IBN - Citizen Journalist initiaitve, and hopefully they will see enough merit once we have suffecient documentary evidence. (Picture, time of day, truck no, place).

For benefit of all I have put these pictures out here.

We intend to keep this initiaitve live for at least a week, and submit the documentation to traffic CP by end of Jan'2012.

#Truckspotting

So What exactly is truckspotting.

Simply put it is an initiative to stop entry of trucks (read heavy vehicles) within city limits (Western Suburbs - Dahisar towards south mumbai, Eastern Suburbs - Mulund towards South Mumbai) during peak traffic hours. 

As per Mumbai traffic police, (022-24937755/24937746/25940303 , http://www.trafficpolicemumbai.org/) entry of heavy vehicles is not allowed within city limits between morning 7 to 11 and evening 6 to 10. This means, we the common citizens of Mumbai, should have access to the narrow expressways (western or eastern) minus the heavy vehicles.

That said, number of heavy vehicles, find their way in the city by means of bribing the traffic cops. Result is we get rowdy truckies driving freely, blocking our already choked roads. No wonder we find lot of trucks conked of on a flyovers, parked on sideways, not allowing to overtake, or simply blocking your way.

All this at peak time between 7 to 11 in morning and 6 to 10 in evening.

Your and mine net loss, we loose out on peace of mind on road, we either get late to office, or miss out on spending some time with our family while going back home.

I understand it is not healthy to point out only one form of vehicle (trucks) and blame them for all traffic ongestion problems, but if we were to break the problem into parts, Truck/Heavy Vehicle forms a significant chunk,and must be addressed.

So how does #truckspotting initiaitve helps ?

Well as citizens it is an effort to collect as much  documentary evidence we can about truckers entering city during peak hours (remember morning 7 to 11 and evening 6 to 10), collate this information (with details like truck no, Time of day and location within city - remember we dont want to create false cases) with pictures (could be from your mobile phones) and upload on twitter with a hashtag #truckspotting.

Alternatively you could email pictures on truckspotting@gmail.com