Stopping jaywalking turns out to be a difficult proposition

Minutes after a mobile court penalised scores of jaywalkers at the capital's Bangla Motor intersection, people were seen crossing the busy street, violating traffic rules yesterday.

It happened despite the presence of executive magistrates and officials of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police's traffic division, and a footbridge located just above the intersection.

People were seen crossing the street amid fast-moving traffic on the busy Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue.

The move came amid authority's repeated initiatives to stop jaywalking and aware dwellers to use footbridges.

Mohammad Moshiur Rahman, executive magistrate of Dhaka metropolitan area, said the mobile court continued from 10:30am to 1:30pm and jailed a person for one week and realised Tk 11,118 from 81 others for various offences.

The jailed person, Mohsin, was given punishment for obstructing the government's duty, added Moshiur.

"We fined the offenders between Tk 20 to 200 and warned jaywalkers not to violate traffic rules," he said.

Just after the end of the court, several were seen hurriedly crossing the street; Biplab, a private company employee at Eskaton area, was one of them.

This correspondent bumped into him near the police box at the intersection. Asked why he was violating the rule, he said he was in a hurry.  

Another one said, seeing the stop signal, he took a chance to cross the road. The mobile court warned both of them and suggested not to violate rule again.

Abdul Kuddus, DMP executive magistrate, present during the mobile court, admitted that it was not possible to eliminate jaywalking overnight.

"It is better to set up mobile courts and aware people instead of remaining silent," he said.

Abdullah Hil Kafi, DMP assistant commissioner of traffic (south division) said they had been trying to aware people to use footbridges in different ways.

In November 2014, in a weeklong drive to control jaywalking on the Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue, DMP penalised several jaywalkers. Two mobile courts were set up each day on the Hotel Ruposhi Bangla intersection-Farmgate Police Box stretch of the avenue.