Mangaluru: Rs 4L fines levied in three days for traffic violations

MANGALURU: While enforcing the new Motor Vehicles Act, the Mangaluru city traffic police have registered 1,635 cases and collected a whopping Rs 3.9 lakh in fines in just three days. Meanwhile, emission centres, insurance agents and the RTO office is witnessing a huge rush of people, who want to ensure that their papers are up to date.
P S Harsha, city police commissioner, told TOI that as many as 1,635 cases were booked between September 7 to September 9 for traffic violations. The highest number of cases (476) were booked at Mangaluru North traffic police station, followed by Mangaluru Traffic East police station (430). The highest amount of fines was collected in the Traffic East police station at Rs 1.24 lakh.
He added that though new traffic fines came into effect from September 1, in Mangaluru, it was fully implemented after a week. “Before implementation, we had started to create awareness among the public about revised fines.”
Traffic police sources said that the highest number of cases were booked for not wearing helmets, not wearing seat belt and for motorists jumping signals.
Ahead of the implementation of revised traffic fines, emission, insurance and RTO offices witnessed a huge rush. Those whose emission and insurance paperwork was not up to date, were seen rushing to the offices to rectify them. “Earlier, per day, we had about 4-5 customers visiting to do emission tests. After implementation of the revised fines, we are having a tough time coping with the number of people who want emission tests done,” said a person at an emission centre. The district has about 60 emission test centres.
Vehicle insurance offices are flooded with vehicle owners who want to renew their lapsed policies. An RTO official said that the office is receiving requests for driving licence renewal, fitness certificate, document update and other work. “This is a clear sign that many were running their vehicle without valid documents for a long time. The revised traffic fines have caused vehicle owners to update their documents and to get other work done,” said an officer.