VIJAYAWADA: Despite the Road Transport Authority (RTA) guidelines, several four-wheelers in the city are flouting the norms and are fixing light emitting diode (LED) and high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps, causing inconvenience to other riders, especially those driving two-wheelers, on the roads. According to sources, it has become a routine affair for the commuters to face difficulty while travelling through the Mahatma Gandhi Road and arterial roads of Moghalrajpuram at night because of the menace. Though complaints have been pouring in, no effective action has been taken by the RTA officials to control the high-beam lights, which obstruct the vision of other drivers, it is alleged.
“We are afraid to drive at nights as the high-beam lights from vehicles coming from the opposite direction impede our vision. Sometimes, it leaves us temporarily blind for a few seconds. Why are the police and the RTA officials not acting against such persons?” asked P Sairam, an employee of a private concern, who once met with an accident as he failed to properly negotiate the high density light from another vehicle.
Though the traffic police had conducted counselling sessions and registered cases against the four wheelers using such high-beam lights, there had been, it was reported, no change in their behaviour and as a result the menace could not be brought under control. Several people using two wheelers, the group that faces the greatest of inconvenience, said that if the RTA and the traffic police initiated a mass drive against the four wheelers, using such high-beam lights, the nuisance could be controlled to a certain extent.
A senior RTA official on condition of anonymity told TNIE that lack of machinery and infrastructure was creating hurdles in conducting special drives. Recently, a high-beam light emitted from a four-wheeler caused a road accident. Though Yerrakatta of Kedareswarapet, the pillion rider, escaped with minor injuries, the bike was damaged. “We will soon launch a campaign by joining hands with traffic police against the HID lamps fitted on the vehicles. The drive aims at complete eradication of the high-beam lights,” the official said