KATHMANDU, June 25: Police have booked 940 road vehicles in the past two weeks for speeding on the Koteshwar-Kalanki section of the ring road in the capital. Metropolitan Traffic Police Division (MTPD), Baggikhana increased surveillance on the 10.4 km stretch of road in an effort to curb speeding, which has rendered the road section unsafe.
“The division has started taking action against speeding in order to reduce the accident rate in the capital,” chief of the division SSP Basanta Kumar Panta said, “The road section has contributed to more than 13 percent of the accidents in the capital in the current fiscal year,” he said. Most of those speeding were found to be motorcyclists.
Traffic police intensifies action against over speeding
According to officials from MTPD, the division has set a speed limit of 50 kilometers per hour on the road section and started booking offenders of this rule from June 11. Spokesperson of the division DSP Rabi Kumar Paudel told Republica that violators are fined Rs 500 .
As per records maintained by the division, 228 persons lost their lives in road accidents in the Valley in the first 11 months of the current fiscal year 2018/19 , up from 194 deaths in the entire fiscal year 2017/18.
Experts claimed that the very nature of the road section is at fault as it has been designed as an expressway, which is not generally constructed through areas of thick human settlement. After realizing the problem with the China-funded newly-built section, the authorities have been putting down new zebra crossings and building pedestrian bridges .
