After sharp criticism from the high court over reckless driving, the city police have stepped up road checks and begun background verification of over 1,000 private bus crew members. A traffic police officer checks a private bus’s documents at a checkpoint in Kochi on Sunday.
In 2022, HC observed that private buses overtaking each other or other vehicles endangered passengers and road users. You Can Also Check: Gold Rate in Kochi | Silver Rate in Kochi | Bank Holidays in Kochi | Public Holidays in Kochi Stay updated with the latest Kochi news.
He said he had become an expert at holding on, a skill born of necessity on his evening commute home to Kangarappady. “The circular service has its own system and timings in place, that’s why they’re not in a rush,” said Rashid, a passenger. “I won’t warn you again,” its conductor told the other driver. At Shanmugham Road, it stopped on the right track beside two buses halted on the left, and the conductor told one driver they could shave a minute off the next run.
Kochi : Five buses, a dozen junctions, nearly two hours. The journey began at High Court Junction. The long week was over, and workers poured into the stop: Tamil women with wilted jasmine in their hair, migrant workers and office-goers, all waiting calmly as bus after bus rushed in. An Aluva bus pulled up, its conductor leaning out of the rear window screaming out stop names. I bought a ticket to Kaloor and held tight to an iron bar as the bus swerved right onto Banerjee Road. The driver honked hard, pushed ahead at Broadway Junction and cut into the right lane. Before I could steady myself, we had reached the Sarita Cinema stop. He swerved left and halted, the rear still angled towards the median. A couple of cars honked from behind; without wasting time, the conductor pulled the bell rope, and the driver hit the accelerator again. The bus was now speeding in the left lane, and other vehicles moved right, seemingly wary of getting in its way. It passed St Albert’s, crossed the TD Road Junction and, by luck or design, sailed through a green signal at Madhava Pharmacy Junction without slowing. At Kacheripady, the driver spotted another bus stopped on the left, swerved right, almost brushing the Metro pillars, then cut left to pull up ahead of it. The conductor shouted out the stops again, packed in passengers and yanked the bell rope. Despite occasional hard braking for cars and bikes, the bus cleared Lisie junction and reached Kaloor from high court in under nine minutes. It directed police to bar them from using horns in the city and confine them to the extreme left lane without overtaking. The orders were never consistently enforced. This journey bore that out: The buses were not just overtaking repeatedly, but recklessly. At Kaloor, buses arrived one after another like fighter jets. One pulled into the leftmost bay by the Metro, another stopped on the roadside, and a third came down the right lane, overtook both and stopped ahead. I boarded a Pookattupady bus. Gripping a post, Pushkaran, an elderly passenger, joked: “We’d be fine even if a tsunami hit us. A traffic block near Kaloor and JLN Stadium slowed the bus, but it kept pushing forward. Near Deshabhimani Junction, it brushed past a group crossing the road, who must have had their hearts in their mouths as it came within inches of their faces. The conductor, though not in uniform, remembered my ticket to Palarivattom. Out of the five buses I took, only two had conductors in uniform. The bus slowed near SN Junction, and as the doors opened I stepped out straight into the path of a two-wheeler, luckily stationary. At Palarivattom, I boarded a Vyttila-Vyttila circular bus. After another bus to the Vyttila hub, I caught one back towards High Court Junction. It moved normally until Pallimukku, when it came up behind another private bus. It finally overtook near the Ernakulathappan temple. Competition over even a minute appeared to fuel the reckless driving. At High Court Junction, the bus immediately swerved towards Edappally for another run. The race did not end at any junction. It ran the length of the city, every day. Download the TOI App.
On Saturday evening, a TOI team rode Kochi’s private buses like regular passengers, as part of its campaign for better bus culture.