Oben Electric turns red lights into respect with #SaluteAtSignal

Bengaluru: For once, Bengaluru’s red lights were not about delay. They were about respect.

To mark National Road Safety Month, Oben Electric rolled out #SaluteAtSignal, a week-long, city-level initiative that transformed some of the capital’s most stressful traffic junctions into moments of collective pause and public gratitude for the Bengaluru Traffic Police.

The idea was disarmingly simple and sharply effective. At red signals, commuters were prompted to stop, switch on parking or hazard lights, avoid honking and acknowledge the officers managing the chaos. No slogans, no speeches—just a shared silence at peak hour.

The initiative ran across two of the city’s toughest intersections: Sony Signal in Koramangala and Vydehi Signal in Whitefield. Between 6 pm and 9 pm, when tempers usually fray, thousands of motorists joined in. Congestion gave way, briefly, to calm.

The campaign put faces and facts to the uniform. At Sony Signal, Shanoor Nadaf (pc 15996) of Adugodi traffic police station was recognised for nine years of service, spending nearly eight hours a day—five of them peak—managing close to one lakh vehicles per shift. At Vydehi Signal, Sangamesh Desai (pc 18308), also with nine years on the force, oversees around 15,000 vehicles per shift at one of Whitefield’s most critical choke points.

Informational boards at each junction spelled out the numbers: years of service, duty hours, peak load, vehicles handled. For many commuters, it was a first glimpse of the physical and mental grind behind everyday traffic order.

The context is unforgiving. Bengaluru’s rapid urban growth has stretched road infrastructure and manpower to the limit, with traffic police routinely standing through long shifts, heat, rain and exhaust fumes. #SaluteAtSignal set out to shift the public mood—from impatience to empathy, from blame to shared responsibility.

For Oben Electric, the campaign dovetails with its broader positioning around safety and urban mobility. The Bengaluru-headquartered company designs and manufactures its electric motorcycles and critical EV components in-house at its 3.5-acre facility. Its patented LFP battery technology focuses on enhanced safety and durability, while its Rorr range—Rorr, Rorr EZ and Rorr EZ Sigma—is built for Indian city conditions.

The company now operates 85+ showrooms across 70+ cities and plans to scale up to 150 exclusive showrooms and service centres by March 2026.

But the message of #SaluteAtSignal went beyond products and expansion charts. It was a reminder that road safety is not only about technology or enforcement—it is about behaviour. And sometimes, all it takes is a red light, a few seconds of stillness, and the courtesy to look up and say thank you.