Heavy vehicles violating speed limit on Noida Expressway

The city traffic police has expressed concern over violation of speed limit by heavy vehicles on the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway and thus posing a threat to other commuters.

The city traffic police has expressed concern over violation of speed limit by heavy vehicles on the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway and thus posing a threat to other commuters. The police have also expressed concern that their appeal to bring heavy vehicles under direct scrutiny of high definition cameras, as is the case for light motor vehicles, has been ignored.

Heavy vehicles do not generally cross the 100 kmph limit but they often cross the limit of 60 kmph, but this is not captured by the cameras, the traffic police said. (Sunil Ghosh/HT Photo)

The speed limit for heavy vehicles on the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway is 60 kmph, and for light motor vehicles is 100kmph. The high definition cameras, installed along the expressway, work under the highway traffic management system (HTMS) and is designed to capture only images of vehicles moving at more than 100kmph.

Heavy vehicles do not generally cross the 100 kmph limit but they often cross the limit of 60 kmph, but this is not captured by the cameras, the traffic police said.

“As the system works, the HTMS cameras capture images of only those vehicles which cross the speed limit of 100kmph. The heavy vehicles escape being fined for violating the 60kmph speed limit,” said Prabal Pratap Singh, superintendent of police (SP), traffic. This, he said, leads to accidents and pose a threat to other commuters.

The traffic police has written several times to the Noida Authority, requesting needful changes in the database of the HTMS. About a month ago, former SP (traffic) Sanjay Singh had also written to the authority in this regard.

The CCTV cameras were installed along the 25-kilometre expressway to capture speeding cars.

“Manual fining on the expressway is not possible at all. We have been raising the issue and hope the authority will do the needful,” the SP said.

It is worth mentioning that challans for traffic violations are high on the expressway ever since HTMS was installed in March 2015. Since then, more than 20,000 people have been fined and the figure does not include heavy vehicles and two-wheelers.

Rama Raman, chairman of Noida authority, who is the patron of HTMS, said, “We will look into it and do the needful.”

Authority has been maintaining the HTMS and other traffic related infrastructure only in the city limits.