Agility, balance and timing are pillars of parkour. And parkour athlete and co-founder of Chennaiparkour Vignesh Raghavan is not as challenged on the parkour course to deliver on those essentials as at three signals on his home turf in Anna Nagar. 

The traffic signalling system at three junctions on Third Avenue in Anna N, all three arriving in a succession, has left him stumped on multiple occasions, earning his traffic challans. One could expect this to irk him as he has become a collector of challans for no fault of his; and this has set him back by “Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 15,000 over the last two years.”

And every time he rolls down Third Avenue, he battles the mental image of a challan dangling over his head. And obviously while at the wheel on this stretch, he is on the rack, the ordeal beginning at the K4 Police Station signal, which is two streets away from where he lives, Q Block, 15th Street. Vignesh notes that at the K4 Police Station signal, Chintamani Roundabout signal and Shanthi Colony signal, motorists are challan-ed for overstepping the stop line automatically via the intelligent traffic management system (the cameras capturing a violation and the subsequent tinkle on the mobile). But motorists cannot but challenge the intelligence behind the system, as these signals do not have countdown timers. 

Vignesh places the issue in perspective: there are the challans to worry about; but the greater concern is safety. 

Without countdown timers, there is no telling when the signal would shift from green to orange. Vignesh notes that when the signal is green, motorists tend to assume there is sufficient time to cross the junction, but they are proven wrong many a time, as the signal turns orange and they have gone past the stop line. And the camera catches the “violation”.

And this is how it impacts safety negatively. Vignesh explains motorists aware of this problem either speed when the signal is green or slow down suddenly slamming on the brakes when they sense the signal turning orange, and both ways, they unwittingly become a road safety hazard.

Vignesh observes that as he keeps encountering this challenge at these three signals closer home, he might be impelled to believe the problem is localised, but he is certain it must be cropping up in other parts of city as well, at any signal without a countdown timer where an intelligent, automated challan-ing system is in place. 

He wants city traffic police to address the problem immediately as it has implications for safety.