Hazardous parking on highways near Ludhiana continues despite mishaps

The illegal practice of parking heavy vehicles, including trucks and trailer-trucks, on the national highway in Ludhiana district has become a nuisance for commuters. Despite people losing lives in road mishaps due to these stationary vehicles on the highway, the pratice of hazardous parking continues.

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The chances of fatal mishaps gets multiplied during the winter as fog brings the visibility to zero and whenever trucks or trailer-trucks remain parked along a highway, commuters fail to notice these, leading to fatal mishaps.

The police have been issuing challans whenever it notices such violations and in certain extreme cases, it also registers FIRs and impound the vehicles parked dangerously on the highway.

In 2017, due to the hazardous parking on the highway, a major road tragedy had occurred in Doraha, in which a woman and her son were killed when their vehicle rammed into a stationary truck. Afterwards, the then Commissioner of Police had directed heads of all 28 police stations of the Ludhiana Commissionerate to register FIRs immediately and impound vehicles, two-wheelers or four-wheelers, in such cases. Following this, several FIRs were also registered and vehicles impounded by the Ludhiana police. Traffic police officials and police personnel were also told to patrol highways during foggy days.

Interestingly, during a visit to the national highway, commercial vehicles were still found parked on the highway near Jalandhar bypass, Ladhowal, Sahnewal, Doraha, Khanna, Chandigarh Road, Gill Road, Rahon Road, etc.

20,162 challans issued

The traffic police has been issuing regular challans for wrong or hazardous parking. The violation of parking rules by trucks on the national highway also comes under the wrong parking head. “In the past six months from January 1 to June 30, the traffic police has issued as many as 20,162 challans for wrong parking and this figure also include those issued to truck drivers or any vehicle for hazardous parking on national highway or anywhere on road, which disrupts traffic flow or may lead to a mishap. Whenever traffic cops see such violations, immediately a challan for wrong parking is issued. Traffic police always urge the people to follow traffic rules and do not park vehicles wrongly on the roads,” said ACP, Traffic, Jatin Bansal.