Why are the Chennai police not able to catch traffic rules violators regarding helmets and seat belts now?
Posted on: 15/Mar/2022 9:31:59 AM
It seems that the Greater Chennai Traffic Police are not able to get full control over the vehicles now in Chennai city. Enforcing helmet and seat belt rule has taken a back seat now in Chennai and this despite many accidents. This was pointed out by a recent study.
The compliance of traffic rules were studied by CAG or citizen consumer and civic action group at 10 important traffic junctions in the Chennai city. The junctions in the localities like Anna Nagar, Teynampet, Velachery, OMR, Royapuram, Retteri and Adyar were taken for this study. It was brought out by the study that the highest number of seat belt violations was in Anna Nagar. In Anna Nagar in the year 2019, traffic police had set up a high tech traffic violation system is known.
To boost contactless enforcement, CCTV cameras with number plate recognition software were set up at Anna Nagar. The study found out that many challans were issued for traffic rule violations by the motorists but no follow-up action was taken and there was accumulation of the pending challans. It is surprising to mention that more than 75% of the traffic violators have not yet paid their penalty amount. Retired police personnel were employed to collect the penalty money in the neighbouring states like AP and Telangana etc.
From the recent study it was clear that more than 90% of the pillion riders do not wear helmets and majority of persons in the rear seat of the car do not wear seat belts etc. It was mentioned by Sumana Narayan, senior researcher from CAG that enforcement could create a difference. The fear of getting caught would make the public wear helmets compulsorily. Truth is that due to the limited resources of the police department the enforcement work could be done up to a certain limit only now.
