New Delhi Traffic Police Has Devised a New Method of Enforcement: Facebook

In New Delhi, India, traffic laws have been ignored and lanes have been meaningless white lines painted on roads. Traffics has just been a chaotic mix of tailgating motorcycles, scooters, cars, vans, trucks, cycle-rickshaws, busses etc. all trying to overtake each other aggressively.

[caption id="attachment_6830" align="alignleft" width="369" caption="An Example of a Report on the Facebook Page"][/caption]

Basically, it has been a traffic cop's nightmare. Now, New Delhi is struggling its reckless road users. It is now trying a new way of enforcing laws: Facebook.

The city's traffic police have set up a page on the social networking site which enables commuters to file complaints against bad fellow drivers. The users can use still images and videos to serve as photographic evidence.

So far the page is a hit. In little over two months, it has registered more than 18,000 fans. Residents have uploaded over 4,500 pictures showing defective license plates, tinted widows, imitation police cars, officers breaking laws, overloaded transport etc.

In New Delhi there are over 6 million vehicles zigzagging the roads and the city has been issuing up to 10,000 tickets a day for traffic offenses. On their website, the city traffic police lists more than 40 road offenses punishable with a fine.

The new Facebook initiative has been gaining popularity with the residents. This came a quite a surprise to the authorities. This surprised the authorities because they expected to see users alerting them mainly about systemic flaws, such as faulty signals, bad street lighting and broken roads.

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Instead of doing this, the users have turned their cameras on others creating danger on streets. I think that this is fantastic. Someone needs to bring order to those streets, and what could be better than the people themselves doing just that?

Traffic officials have now dedicated staff to monitoring the Facebook posts.

The authorities are aware that the cyber forum they have opened to regulate road use is prone to abuse, however so far now bogus claims have come to notice.

It is unlikely that there will be abuse as I'm sure that the citizens of New Delhi are just as anxious as the officials to get their streets in order. They know that it will help increase the safety of the people living and working there.

"Certainly it has increased our workload, but at the same time it has also facilitated traffic response," said Satyendra Garg, a joint commissioner of New Delhi's traffic police.