Bald tyres, shrill horns? Pay fine

Bald tyres, shrill horns? Pay fine

A T Subrahmanya | TNN


Bangalore: It’s not just no-parking zone violations or one-way rule infringement that attracts the law-enforcement agency’s wrath. There are many other regulations that most motorists aren’t aware of — worn-out tyres, shrill horn and dazzling headlights being some of the 42 violations listed in the Motor Vehicles Act.
With the traffic police sporting a hawk’s eye during its intensified drive, motorists might end up coughing up fine for even seemingly trivial violations. The traffic west division alone collected fine adding up to Rs 40.98 lakh in the last week of August. As many as 27,849 cases were booked under the MV Act for various offences, with the traffic west police booking 112 people on August 30 night alone for drunken driving.
The major offences were jumping signal (3,955 cases), wrong parking (3,499), overspeeding (1,032) and dangerous driving (1,062). There are other violations for which fines were slapped: 1,991 cases for no-entry driving, 583 for shrill horn, 221 for riding on the pavement, 464 for drunken driving and 606 for using mobile phones while driving.
Matters seemingly trivial too are on the list — refusing to be hired, carrying extra schoolchildren, defective head and tail lights, vehicle without a first-aid box, drivers without uniform, defective number plate and emission of black smoke.
Additional commissioner of police (traffic and security) Praveen Sood says the fine collection could reach an all-time high this year as Rs 18 crore has been collected in the first eight months itself. “This the result of strict enforcement of traffic rules and regulations. Now we have multiple enforcement methods like manual checks, automated checks, enforcement cameras and using Blackberry devices. All these methods have helped in stricter enforcement of the law,” Sood explained.
He said that many of the offences might look trivial but the police wouldn’t spare violators.