The Annual Traffic Index reported Mumbai to be the 4th worst traffic-congested city in the world. India itself is the worst-hit country when it comes to traffic congestion, globally. Apart from the irritation and time waste caused due to traffic jams, there is one more reason why we all just hate getting stuck in a jam, and that’s the honking. Even if the traffic light signals red, people still have a tendency to keep honking unnecessarily which just ends up giving you a bad headache apart from leaving you feeling super annoyed. But things in Mumbai will soon change for the better when it comes to honking, thanks to the Mumbai Police. Traffic signals in Mumbai will soon have decibel meters to punish people who honk with a longer waiting time. They even released a short video on Twitter depicting the same.
What’s In It?
The Mumbai Traffic Police first decided to try their concept of ‘Punishing Signal’ in Mumbai. They installed microphones with decibel meters at traffic signals in the city like CSMT, Bandra, Peddar Road and Marine Drive too. This was done to check the noise pollution caused due to excessive and unnecessary honking at traffic jams. Whenever the decibel meters on top of the signal poles crossed the 85dB mark, the red signal would restart at 90 seconds. Which meant that people would have to wait 90 seconds more for the green signal, and if they honk beyond the permissible decibel level, then they would just have to keep waiting longer. The meter displayed the message “Honk More, Wait More.”
https://twitter.com/MumbaiPolice/status/1223090017397960705
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What’s More?
The video of this ‘Punishing Signal’ was put up on social media with a message in Marathi that created awareness on how people shouldn’t honk so many times as it can lead to deafness. It also urged people to take into consideration the young, old and the sick. The idea of this ‘Punishing Signal’ is really innovative and also the need of the hour. In the video too, initially, people were not able to understand what was going on.
But as the timer kept resetting to 90 seconds due to the excessive honking, they were able to figure out what was going on and they eventually stopped honking. Well, we salute the Mumbai Traffic Police for coming up with such an innovative solution to a common problem. And we hope that other cities in India too install ‘Punishing Signals’ like these and reduce noise pollution. Did you know Bangalore Is The World’s Most Traffic Congested City As Per Annual Traffic Index?
First Published: February 03, 2020 11:43 AM