Lucknow traffic police steps up women's safety initiatives at toll plazas

The traffic police on Saturday night began a special ‘Meet & Greet’ combining vehicle checks with direct conversations with women travelling at night.

With recent road-rage incidents involving women raising concerns over their safety on roads, Lucknow traffic police has taken its safety outreach beyond checking vehicles and traffic violations, with officers stopping at toll plazas to ask women travellers a basic question: Was your journey safe?

DCP (Traffic) Raveena Tyagi said the initiative aimed to bring road safety and women’s safety under one broader safety framework, particularly during night travel. (HT Photo)

The traffic police on Saturday night began a special ‘Meet & Greet’ initiative at four toll plazas around Lucknow, combining vehicle checks with direct conversations with women travelling at night. The initiative comes amid a series of road-rage incidents involving women in different cities, including a recent case in Gurugram in which a woman biker was allegedly chased and hit by a car.

Cops intervene to ensure women's safety

DCP (Traffic) Raveena Tyagi said the initiative aimed to bring road safety and women’s safety under one broader safety framework, particularly during night travel.

The toll plazas were chosen as key entry and exit points to Lucknow, bringing in and sending out a large number of long-distance travellers, including families and women travelling at night. The brief interaction also allowed police to speak to passengers without significantly disrupting their journey.

Women traffic police personnel approached vehicles and asked passengers about their experience rather than waiting for them to report a problem.

“Road safety is not limited to preventing accidents or checking traffic violations. A safe journey also means that every passenger, particularly a woman travelling at night, feels secure and knows that help is available,” Tyagi said.

The Gurugram incident has drawn attention to the vulnerability of women riders during road confrontations. In that case, the woman alleged that a car followed her before hitting her motorcycle; the police subsequently added an attempt-to-murder charge to the FIR.

In Lucknow too, a recent incident involving a woman and a car following an altercation brought attention to how road confrontations can escalate.

Officials provided women information about the 112 emergency response number and 1090 women’s helpline, asking them to seek assistance in case of harassment, insecurity or an emergency.

The road-safety component continued alongside the outreach. Police checked 189 vehicles across the four toll plazas and issued four challans for driving under the influence of alcohol.