The ‘injustice’ of traffic challans

HYDERABAD: Frustrated by barely-moving traffic, potholes, speed-breakers and now rumble strips at every turn, it’s understandable that motorists see in traffic challans an injustice that they could do without. While most insist that they have been unduly fined, some say that multiple fines for the same violation the same day is like rubbing salt onto their wounds. 

Of the commuters, bikers form a major portion of the violations recorded and challans issued, and they are the most hurt. Those penalised say that field staff have fixed targets and focus only on issuing challans leaving traffic flow regulation to the wind. However, senior police officials say that they have revamped the challan issuing process and are now focussing more on accident prone areas. “The discount on clearing traffic challans is just the start of the revamped mechanism,” said AV Ranganath, Joint Commissioner (Traffic), Hyderabad city police.

However, motorists complain of faulty challans issued on them for violations like jumping red signal, crossing stop line, free-left, etc, even when there are no clear markings. “I was challaned twice for jumping the red signal. On both occasions, I crossed the stop line when the signal was orange and I could not move back as vehicles pulled up behind me,” said a scooterist.

A motorist complained of faulty challan for crossing the stop line. “At least half of the junctions in the city don’t have clear markings, as I have observed. However, challans are issued as the marking is slightly visible on the opposite side. First all these issues have to be corrected, before such huge fines are slapped on us. For literally no violation, we are treated like criminals,” he said.

Another major allegation is the targets given to field staff for imposing challans, where cops stand or sit so that they are not visible to the public and keep clicking pictures and issuing challans. “Their sole endeavour is to reach their target. Due to this, they forget to regulate the traffic even when there is congestion,” a biker alleged.

Another aspect which is troubling the motorists is that challans are issued and they are not even aware of this, until they are stopped by police. People who have sold their vehicles and have not transferred ownership to the buyer suffer the most. 

Given these issues, traffic police have started taking corrective steps in the process of issuing challans. Now, any traffic police station cannot issue more than 400 challans per day. Unlike in the past, where most of the challans were on bikes, of which a majority were for not wearing helmets, instructions have been issued that there should be balance among all vehicles and covering all heads of violations for issuing challans. 

“The field staff also cannot sit or stand hiding and issue challans. The latest cameras issued to them will capture latitude and longitude, indicating their position. Each challan is examined so that there is no discrepancy on part of the staff,” said Ranganath, who is also the nodal officer for e-challans in Telangana.

Challans are also categorised based on the vehicles involved in violation. “Earlier the amount of penalty for wrong side driving, speeding was the same for all vehicles and in all locations. But now it has been changed based on the vehicle, location and other parameters,” added Ranganath.