In a bid to curb increasing traffic rule violations by VVIP and government officials’ vehicles, the Metropolitan Traffic Police Division has started training drivers who work in the Singha Durbar on following traffic rules and correctly parking their cars.

The division on Friday conducted awareness training, which included imparting legal knowledge about traffic rules and regulations, to 35 drivers of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

“This is a first step forward in curbing the traffic rules violations by VVIPs and government officials, and that is the reason why we started this drive from Singha Durbar. We will give this training to all drivers from government offices after Tihar,” said traffic police chief and Senior Superintendent of Police, Bhim Prasad Dhakal.

Traffic police records show that the offical vehicles of ministers are responsible for numerous traffic rule violations such as parking in undesignated areas, breaching of lane rule and over-speeding. The roads in Kathmandu are notorious for wrong parking, often leading to traffic jams.

“We have wheel-locked many vehicles of VVIPs and issued tickets for parking in undesignated areas,” said Dhakal.

After not being able to control wrong, indiscriminate parking of four-wheelers, the division office had enforced the new ‘wheel lock’ system since the first week of January this year. The drive started after the division got 50 sets of wheel locks from the Kathmandu Metropolitan City.

Earlier, traffic officers were reluctant to give away the names of violating ministers, even though their vehicles were booked for violating the traffic rules.
“This training will help reduce such wrong practices. Now on, if a VVIP vehicle or any government official’s vehicle is found violating the traffic rules, we have decided to make the name of the concerned minister and official public through the media,” said Dhakal.

Dhakal and other senior officials at the traffic police pointed out wrong parking on the roadside or on footpaths as the main cause of traffic jams in the Valley. To tackle the problem, the division office has made a work plan to reduce Kathmandu Valley’s traffic problems, working on themes such as engineering, education and enforcement.

“Educating and making drivers aware is our priority. What I have realised is that VVIP and government officials’ drivers are very ignorant about traffic rules violations. That is why we started this drive. Once their training is over, we will go to the public and private drivers for the training,” said Dhakal.