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65,000 motorists fined for not wearing seat belt
The awareness drives of the traffic police have failed to serve their purpose as around four lakh motorists were challaned last year for violating traffic norms. Leena Dhankhar reports.
The awareness drives of the traffic police have failed to serve their purpose as around four lakh motorists were challaned last year for violating traffic norms.
The data procured from the traffic police department shows that car drivers in the Millennium City do not like using seat belt and two-wheeler drivers do not feel comfortable wearing helmets. But they dare to jump traffic signals, risking their lives.
The maximum number of people, about 65,000, was booked by the traffic officials for not using seat belts, while over 64,000 drivers were issued challans for parking their vehicles in unauthorized zones. Besides, more than 48,000 bikers were fined for not wearing helmets.
The number of offenders challaned for not using seat belt has witnessed an increase of about 50 per cent as compared to the figures of 2011, in which about 43,000 drivers were fined for the same offence. According to the police, the reason for the steep rise in the offence is that the moment a driver enters Gurgaon jurisdiction from Delhi side, he/she removes the seat belt.
Last year, the Gurgaon traffic police had conducted several drives to spread awareness among the residents about the traffic rules and urged the drivers to follow the norms.
Deputy commissioner of police (east) Maheshwar Dayal said, "The aim of spreading awareness was to seek mass support to bring down accident figures. About 80 per cent road accidents take place due to human errors, while 20 per cent due to technical errors. We need to conduct more drives to check the traffic rule violation and challan the offenders to show our presence felt among the residents."
The traffic police department booked as many as 20,160 people for jumping traffic lights, while 8,190 people were fined for dangerous driving last year. However, only nine taxi drivers were found to be duping their customers by taking longer routes.
More than 20,000 people were challaned for driving fast, while about 14,000 commuters fined for not carrying a valid driving licence.
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