Sujeet Patharkar

Traffic Police

Deputy Commissioner

Vishwas Pandhre

embrace

Facebook

the middle

Pune Tithe Shistiche Une

Thirty-four-year-oldof Sadashiv Peth, who works in a multinational bank, is the apt personification of the change he wants to see.After his daily schedule is consumed by corporate hours, he transforms into a traffic vigilante. He identifies on-road obstacles and pastes red-coloured radium reflectors on them. He also photographs and videographs traffic violators and claims to have created an archive of 2,500 photographs and 500 videos. He now intends to make them go viral on WhatsApp.Patharkar’s deeds have impressed Puneso much that the Punekar has now started tutoring cops, who have invited him to train traffic volunteers. He has also trained them on how to control vehicular movement during Ganpati festival.of Police (Traffic)said, “He uses technology to discipline traffic. Whenever he encounters a traffic jam, he clears the congestion. He also gives lectures to our volunteers.”Speaking on his WhatsApp initiative, Patharkar said, “I will make the images and videos go viral from Monday. Assuming that there is someone watching them, I hope violators will refrain from breaking traffic rules.”On Sunday afternoon, Patharkar was on the prowl in Kothrud, capturing traffic violators on film. “This will be an ongoing process. The images and videos illustrate a variety of violations,” he said. Patharkar’s initial idea was to screen the videos before the start of a movie in theatres, but soon changed his mind totechnology. “WhatsApp will have a wider audience. Posting it on one group will lead to people sharing it with other groups.”Pandhre added, “Violators will now be more conscious as the reach of the medium is vast. It should also incorporate themes like importance of seat belts and helmets.”Patharkar, who also hosts awareness sessions at schools, coaching institutes and for NGOs, has contributed immensely to increase road safety through this habit of sticking reflector tapes on objects which come in the way of pedestrians and motorists. He does the same on obstacles — trunks, tree branches, electric poles, etc — on roads with poor visibility.”He started this initiative in 2010 when “someone had posted a picture of a dark and rusty pole in a Bavdhan bylane on the Traffic police’spage. On inspection, I found that the pole was bang inof the road which had no street lights or a warning sign. I then pasted tapes on the pole.”Unaware of the development, the same person posted a new image, thanking cops for their quick action. “That spurred the activity of identifying obstacles which could cause fatal accidents in the night and pasting radium tapes on them,” he said, adding that he identifies such objects when he returns home late from work or movies. “I stop my vehicle to paste the stickers. In the past four years, I have pasted radium tapes on almost 1,800 such objects,” he said.On asking why he goes out of his way to make Pune roads safer, he said, “A study shows roads should occupy 15 per cent of a city. In Pune, it is hardly 7.5 per cent. It is important to make people aware of infrastructure and following rules to avoid accidents. In 2012, 450 people, most of whom were pedestrians, lost their lives to road mishaps.” Patharkar also has a 10-minute movie called Chaos on Wheels orto his credit. The films were released by then CP Gulabrao Pol.