Jaipur: A few days after the Harmada road accident that claimed 13 lives, Jaipur’s road safety effort faced major shortcomings, as many of the recently painted and fitted signages at more than 250 traffic signals across the city were found defective.The Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) and the traffic police began the signage campaign on an urgent footing following the incident, yet these faults have raised concerns about how the work was carried out and monitored in what is meant to be a key safety step.On Monday, during an inspection by TOI, it emerged that several signals either have a stop line but no zebra crossing or have a zebra crossing but no stop line.At the junction near the Ram Nagar metro station and near the Choti Chaupar inside the Walled City, the zebra crossings have been marked below the stop lines. This suggests that if vehicles stop in the correct position when the signal is red, the rear of the queue would block the zebra crossing.“It seems the different administrations concerned with traffic management are not at all keen on implementing pedestrian safety measures. The department concerned shall rectify the situation at the earliest,” stated Mahesh Chand Dhaka, a resident of Sodala.Traffic officials said the JDA is responsible for painting and placing signage at intersections, while JDA officers said there are some faulty signs and they will address them as soon as they can. “Recently, when we were appointed to carry out awareness programmes at a few crossings, we also noticed it. We would forward a letter to JDA highlighting the issues,” stated Neha Khullar, the executive director of Muskaan Foundation For Road Safety.
