Stupid Cops - Try Saving gas...
Date: 2008-08-29 11:16:13
Source: http://www.dailymirror.lk/DM_BLOG/Sections/frmNews...
Submitted By: Fight Videos
I had heard that as a ‘policy’ the most intellectually challenged of the police force was put to the traffic department. Yesterday’s ‘fuel saving’ fiasco of a traffic plan in Colombo, proved this to a degree far beyond that I had ever given credit to the police for! What is usually a 15-20 minute ride to office took exactly 50 minutes thanks to the ingenious new traffic plan the City Traffic division of the police department had adopted. Certainly, the VIP traffic that occasionally prolong that 15 minute ride is not to be forgotten, but even that did not compare with the horrendous chaos that was the Colombo roads early morning yesterday. Switching off the traffic lights it seemed like the entire police force was on the roads yesterday. Reportedly the police had carried out a test run of a new fuel saving traffic plan. The bumper to bumper traffic of commuters who were totally unaware of what was happening was very frustrating indeed. The innocents in their thousands were trying every by-lane available to get to some important appointment or another. The fact that it was a rainy day, when traffic automatically becomes chaotic anyway, had obviously not crossed the big brains at the department, when choosing to go ahead with the plan yesterday! One with common sense could have seen that yesterday was not the day to commence the ingenious plan on. It is not only the delays and the fuel wastage that the department need to be taken to task against. It was also the security threat the unwise (for use of a more polite word) plan had forced upon the commuters. Stuck in chaotic traffic that the officers on duty had long lost control of, the multitude of vehicles on the roads created an easy target for the terrorists yesterday. So much for the elaborate safety measures that the government claims it is exercising. The chaos on the roads yesterday was giving it all on a platter to a happy suicide bomber! The fact remains that the police department like all other government institutions run on tax payers’ money. Nothing gives the Department the right to try out plans that cause inconvenience to the commuters as they did last morning. The sheer waste of fuel aside the loss of productive hours on the road cannot be overlooked. It is difficult to imagine how many important meetings went unattended and the monetary loss as a result of yesterday’s road play by the police! It is advisable that the police leave crucial issues like planning to those attached to a professional organisation or a university, than attempt tasks they are clearly not geared for. Is common sense too much to ask of the department? There has to be some end to the ludicrous lack of understanding of the tax payers and the continued failure by the authoirities to meet the challenges facing a changing world!
