The toll plazas were chosen as they serve as key entry and exit points to Lucknow
“At the Purvanchal Expressway, Agra Expressway, Itaunja and Nigohan toll plazas, traffic police teams spoke to women passengers about their journey, whether they had faced any inconvenience or unsafe situation on the way and whether they knew how to seek police assistance if required,” the DCP said. LUCKNOW: With recent road-rage incidents involving women triggering renewed concerns over their safety on the road, Lucknow traffic police has taken its safety outreach beyond checking vehicles and traffic violations, with officers now stopping at toll plazas to ask women travellers a more basic question: Was your journey safe? The initiative comes amid a series of road-rage incidents involving women in different cities, including a recent case in Gurugram in which a woman biker was allegedly chased and hit by a car. The toll plazas were chosen as they serve as key entry and exit points to Lucknow, bringing in and sending out a large number of long-distance travellers, including families and women travelling at night. The brief stoppage at these points also gives police an opportunity to interact with passengers without significantly disrupting their journey. The initiative also sought to make the interaction less formal. Women traffic police personnel approached vehicles and asked passengers about their experience rather than waiting for them to report a problem. The Gurugram incident has brought particular attention to the vulnerability of women riders during confrontations on the road. In that case, the woman alleged that a car followed her before hitting her motorcycle; police subsequently added an attempt-to-murder charge to the FIR. In Lucknow too, a recent incident involving a woman and a car following an altercation brought attention to how confrontations on the road can escalate. the incident has added to concerns around women’s safety during road journeys While the circumstances were different from the Gurugram road-rage case. Against this backdrop, the traffic police’s toll-plaza intervention places emphasis on an aspect that routine vehicle checking may not capture: the passenger’s experience of safety during a journey.
The traffic police on Saturday-Sunday night began a special ‘Meet & Greet’ initiative at four toll plazas around Lucknow, combining vehicle checks with direct conversations with women travelling at night.