My wife received a challan by post a few days back for "holding/ using a mobile phone while driving" asking to pay up Rs 100/- fine as per Sec 230(A) KMV rules R/W 177 IMV. The incident was supposed to have happened at 9.40 hrs on Monday, 19th Jan, at Rajajinagara Entrance Circle. Now, she swears she has never been to Rajajinagar in the past one year, nor my son who sometimes borrows her vehicle (We live in Koramangala). She had received a notice once earlier for "parking in a place where she was not supposed to park (or, something to that effect)", against which she readily arranged to pay up without contest. But, this time around, the question is why should she pay, even if that's the easiest thing to do.
I called up the 'Enforcement Automation Centre' on 22943381 (info provided on the challan) to check out. When I contested the charge, the person at the other end told me to have the matter verified with the Rajajinagar traffic police on 22943016. A certain Mr Moula Baig there checked his records and reiterated that that was the information he had received from the duty constable. My trying to reason with him elicited the response that he didn't have the powers to cancel the challan. He further seemed to suggest that nobody else had the powers either, and that the only option left for us was to contest the matter in the traffic court. What does one do?
Now, here is a case where the duty constable had obviously made a mistake, perhaps a very genuine one at that (Reading and recording registration numbers, particularly of moving vehicles, is not easy even for the sharpest of eyes; and, on top of it all, we have the numbers written in all kinds of sizes and stylings, and some totally in Kannada), and we are having to run around in circles trying to seek justice, even if it is a trivial issue. The question is, in matters such as these, where the charge is of a minor nature and no third party is involved, shouldn't powers be vested with say an ACP level officer to cancel the challan, based purely on merits?
I may add here that all the police personnel I spoke to in the matter have been extremely polite in their dealings.
Connected reading: http://bangalore.praja.in/blog/murali772/2008/11/08/i-got-challanned
Muralidhar Rao
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Verification
User Interaction Designer
Bangalore
which solution is better?
Well Mr. Murali, You're here again with a challan, eh?! Just got reminded of the other thread in which we were talking about challans ONLY.
BTW, talking about solutions we need to be careful here. We need a solution that says not there has to be one person at the apex of the Traffic PD who can "waive" certain catches assuming laxity on the part of "his" men.. The solution we propose must ensure all the cops on the road that are entrusted with the job of watching for defaulters on the road be equipped with machinery (lite-wt & mobile) that deletes all scope for error, especially in noticing vehicle characteristics - colour, reg.no., brand/make, model etc. May be far-fetched, but thats the kind of system that we eventually want to reach. We need to ask for such a system to be in place, without which people on road are bound to get stuck with more such incedents in future.. This way we're making sure that what we ask for is a scalable solution, in that, it works equally well in (defaulting) situations much more complex and disastrous in nature.
Besides, it is noticeably a sad state of affairs that the crime-tracking (dont mind the word please, Mr. Murali) process is such a slacky one. A defaulter is sent notice nearly a month after the incedent? This is simply not what we expect, isnt it? So clearly there's a major rennovation in order here. Both on the road, and in their back-end offices.. Technology must be employed at its best to hasten catching and tracking.. lest in another decade when we reach the 10 million ball park, road crime catching/tracking will be a nightmare. Waiving violations will perhaps be the way of life to cops then!!
-Nijavaada
RTO guidelines
Was reading an ad about electric vehicles - they are talked about more nowadays.
Apparently electric vehicles which resemble a scooty from all angles have been allowed to be driven without any license, or even a registration plate.
This is akward! Why should an electric "automobile" be allowed to enjoy such unfair, and potentially dangerous benefits? I agree its a kind of motivation/attraction for buyers, but does the traffic dept. have a roadmap as to when it plans to start bringing all such electric vehicles into its web? With no license required to ride these vehicles, I wonder how BTP is planning to manage any chaos that license-less minors might create by riding these vehicles amidst heavy traffic in cities.
This leads to some basic questions as to what are the guidelines on the nature of vehicles that the RTO must plan to "allow" on road? The wide disparity in the nature (horse power based) of vehicles that occupy a stretch of our roads is one of the primary causes for slow & crawling traffic at junctions. Speed-laning, which might actually help segregate vehicles based on power, is not possible at junctions & signals. Hence cutting down on this vehicle disparity on road is something that might have to implemented in Bengaluru, to begin with. A uniform looking traffic profile is a far more controllable entity by any policing authority than what we have today on road. To begin with, we dont have the best of the policing force available at our disposal. So it is in the best interests of our driving pleasure that we first strive to bring uniformity in traffic on road, and then ensure the police force is equipped to handle this..
-Nijavaada
No reason why
I presume they run on batteries which need to be charged. The energy source for charging these batteries may be equally harming to the environment. I can not believe that the authorities could be clueless to this extent.
If what Nijavaada says is true about electric vehicles it only shows how desperate the manufactures are to sell the electric automobiles running on batteries. Their being environment friendly is a bogie.
If the scooties are just like cycles then probably both should not be allowed on roads meant for motorized vehicles. These are just like pedestrians who are not supposed to walk on roads.
PSAnot our exclusive privilege
Nijavaada avare' namaskara.
Firstly, the postal franking stamp on the notice makes it out that it was posted on the 28th of Jan, ie within 9 days of the "crime", which is not bad; of course, could be better. It was received around 2nd Feb. But, since I was travelling between 4th and 8th, I could get down to doing something about it only after 9th Feb.
And, I am not even for a moment under any delusion that I and my family members have the exclusive privilege of being targeted by Mr Praveen Sood's men. During my talk with others, many of them have admitted to having enjoyed the privilege also. The difference is that, while they would rather not talk about it, I openly discuss it in order to try and help the police fine tune the whole process and make it equitable. Your comments in this regard are indeed a positive contribution.
Last evening, I was in a conversation with a Korean lady, and she told me that the fines in Seoul are of the equivalent of Rs 4,000/- for over-speeding, and Rs 1 Lakh for drunken-driving. Now, that's what I call deterrent punishment. Mr Sood may want to make a note of that. But, before he implements it, he has to ensure his process is a lot more fool-proof, and equitable (seen to be so, also).
Muralidhar Rao
PS-1: The Korean lady also talked about the corruption in the Commissioner's office at the time of Visa verification/ renewal, etc. She will be giving me details. That will be subject for a fresh blog from me. Meanwhile, today's newspapers have quoted the new DGP, Mr Ajai Kumar Singh, promising to make the police working corruption-free. Not an easy task. But, Mr Singh is no ordinary officer, either.
PS-2: I agree with your comments regarding the electric vehicles. At best, they can be allowed some road tax concessions.
Interesting... I got a ticket in the mail today!
My ticket was for "dangerous" driving and the fine is Rs. 500. They have mentioned an exact location which my car does frequent. Since we have one car for the family we have a driver and going by the location and time, he must have been driving and I in all likelihood was sitting next to him. I am very unforgiving with the driver about violating traffic rules. The madness that (my daughter has named this "Pandemonium Circle") this particular crime scene is (intersection of Wheeler Road and Assaye Road in the Cox Town/Fraser Town area), I cannot imagine what would constitute "dangerous" driving. Perhaps the driver changed "lanes" without signalling or perhaps he passed another car on the wrong side. May be he got within a foot of another vehicle. I know we did not hit anybody and anything or else there would be telltale signs.
At any rate, do not know how to contest this ticket or even if it is worth doing that. While I appreciate the dilligence on the part of the police (and frankly the admiration for their ability to track me down and send out such an intimadating looking document) and the stiff fine which will serve as a severe deterrence to all those contemplating traffic violations, I wish they had pulled us over when it happened so we would know what we did wrong.
It looks like I will have to quietly cough up the 500 rups.
Electric Vehicles
User Interaction Designer
Bangalore
positive contributions
@ Murali,
I would like to clearly re-state that my comments in all instances on this forum have always been with a constructive intention only. Its just that there's a minor area of intersection between interests of a few people when they get together. But that doesnt mean the indifferent part of differences between two or more persons are all wrong, or are not constructive. It needs to be decided upon after debate only. Do we have scope for that here? My opinion is, we should.
Anyway, I think we should get back on track now..
-Nijavaada
vvr - thats great news
VVR sir, not that I enjoyed that comment at your expense. But isn't it great to see them do two things:
Good going. Must applaud traffic police for trying here, but they must publish a clear way of contesting these fines. It needs to be on their website.
Since we don't yet have high speed roads in our city, I should take back my constant whining about traffic police "not mingling" with the traffic to catch the reckless and more dangerous drivers. If there vehicle registration database is maintained well, they can spot and fine recklessness in "stand under a shaded" tree mode as well. Camers too could do the job.
I was thinking that we should meet Mr Sood once to learn about their new initiatives, I am sure thre is a lot more happening than what you and me hear from our trusted sources and newspapers.
I found out more ....
... during my visit to the police station to pay up.
"Dangerous driving" = driving while using the cellphone. Apparently, there is no other type of offence that falls in this category.
I feel that the fine was justified. Our driver had (he doe not work for us any more -- he left abruptly after this incident, he must have known that this ticket was coming ) this annoying habit of answering his phone while driving despite several warnings from us. It is dangerous to talk on the phone while driving, no two thoughts about this.
Sadly though, there are other acts of traffic violations that are extremely dangerous and life threatening but are such common occurrences in our fair city that the police do not even seem to recognize them as offences. I hope they do something about them as well.
By the way, my visit to the PS was not as traumatic as I had imagined it would be. The polite man at the reception took my money and made me wait for 5 minutes and gave me a printed receipt. Our PS is quite a sight. It is a raj era building that looks like a large hillstation cottage, recently renovated thanks to the largesse of an NRI. Quite pretty on the outside, fairly clean inside and headed by this dynamic young female officer.
Apparently there seems to be
defective number plate charge
More and more friends are owning up getting caught by the traffic cops. The following is what one narrated to me today.
While getting his car out of a parking lot after visiting a client, the front number plate broke obliterating the last two digits. The consciencious man that he is, he was heading straight to his regular garage when, as luck would have it, the traffic cops stopped him. His explanation that it had happened just a few minutes back, and that he was headed stright to the garage to have it fixed, did not find acceptance with the official in-charge. He paid the Rs 100/- fine for the "defective number plate" charge, and proceeded straight to the garage and got it fixed.
The question that he raises is shouldn't the field level officials be empowered to hold the charge in suspense, for say 24 hrs, till such time as the vehicle is presented before them with the defect rectified.
The question that I raise is why then are the vehicles with 'only Kannada' number plates not being booked under the "defective number plate" charge, but instead being allowed to ply with impunity.
Muralidhar Rao
review mechanism instituted
My wife's colleague underwent a similar experience, and this is what she wrote to me:
Even I had made a phone enquiry to Peenya police station regarding the notice received by me, and they very confidently told me that there was no error. It appears that they refer only the computer entry, and not the physical record. When I persisted with the Automation centre, they asked the Peenya station for a xerox copy of the physical challan. When that was received, the error came to light, and they have since arranged to cancel the challan. May be you should also ask for a copy of the challan.
Two suggestions - Can the police constables on the road have mobiles which have cameras? Also, can they have fax facilities between the stations and the Automation centre?
I had indeed planned on doing all of that and more. But, considering the effort it required, I kept postponing, and finally, fearing action against my wife, I quietly arranged to pay off the fine. Not happy about it, though!
Whatever, it now appears they have set up a review mechanism in case vehicle owners want to challenge a fine levy, compared to earlier when they would just ask you to appeal in the court.
Muralidhar Rao