[SS-Traveller]

Many state governments are progressively refusing to implement the maximum penalty provisions of the MV (Amendment) Act 2019, either in an attempt to come across as citizen-friendly, or because such high fines may prove difficult to implement by the Traffic Police in the various cities of these states.

https://thewire.in/government/not-al...tion-penalties

Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Gujarat, Telangana ruled by NDA alliance partner Telangana Rashtra Samithi, Congress-ruled Rajasthan, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh, Trinamool Congress’s West Bengal and Aam Aadmi Party-governed Delhi have deferred the Act’s implementation and constituted committees to ‘soften’ the impact on motorists.

In fact, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state Gujarat was among the first to put the implementation of the amended Act on hold. The Vijay Rupani government said it has referred the issue to the Regional Transport Office, as it found the penalty amounts unfeasible, and was awaiting the report.

Leaders in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab opposed the hefty fines, calling them “too excessive”.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india...88FgOqmOM.html

Two Opposition-ruled states, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal, said on Sunday they had decided not to implement revised penalties under the amended Motor Vehicles Act (MVA) for now as they were very high, even as the Rajasthan government said it would review the fines on Monday.

Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are ruled by the Congress and West Bengal by the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress.

The latest to notify (much) reduced penalties is the state of Gujarat (which is certainly not opposition-ruled), where fines are 10%-50% of what are notified as maximum penalties under the amended Act.

https://www.news18.com/news/auto/guj...t-2303779.html

- For triple riding, the fine will be Rs 100 as against Rs 1000 in the MV Act

- Driving a vehicle with pollution has a fine of Rs 10,000 under the new MV Act, whereas in Gujarat it will be Rs 1000 for small vehicles and Rs 3000 for large vehicles.

Obviously, road safety and vehicular pollution control are not high on the agenda of our politicians and elected leaders.

Please update this thread with news reports & personal experiences from all the states across the country, regarding lesser penalty amounts being charged because the State government mandated so.

[Rodie09]

In my personal view I care two hoots about imposing fines on people not wearing helmet or seat belts. I do not really care if these fines have been reduced because I would rather leave it to individual if they care about their safety or not.

At the same time any act by anyone that endangers others' lives, limbs or property must be dealt with harshest penalties. Drunk driving, wrong siding driving and overloading and overspeeding are few such examples.

[aargee]

May not be official, Tamilnadu, despite in support of BJP has clearly ignored the new amendments. Anyone with bare riding skills, this state will be welcoming playground to show their skills. Has become absolute ridiculous circus on the road these days.

Funny part? There's TASMAC (state owned beverage corporation) at an average of every half Km, yet none of them coming out of this "holy" place are worshiped!!

All the tradition are still observed such as, riding without helmet, over load on HCV & LCV etc

[Thermodynamics]

Heavy penalties have created big awareness. It has spurred widespread discussions on safety, pollution, traffic rules and keeping vehicle papers up to date.

While I support the development, I am going through nightmare. PUCC for my diesel car was due. Since last week, I made 7 attempts visiting Emission Testing Centers (ETC) in Bangalore and all went in vain. Some of the them had Gas analyzers kaput and some had Server issues. Some shoo away Diesels. Many had long queues, the one near Brookfield mall is almost half kilometer.

I live on the outskirts of Bangalore and a nearest ETC is 20km. So I must have driven 7x40 = 280 km hunting ETCs barring the hours spent in Bangalore traffic. Now my PUCC has expired. It looks like, paying 10k fine would break even the cost incurred in obtaining PUCC.

[FrodoOfTheShire]

Originally Posted by Rodie09

In my personal view I care two hoots about imposing fines on people not wearing helmet or seat belts. I do not really care if these fines have been reduced because I would rather leave it to individual if they care about their safety or not.

At the same time any act by anyone that endangers others' lives, limbs or property must be dealt with harshest penalties. Drunk driving, wrong siding driving and overloading and overspeeding are few such examples.

Well said and I completely agree. Someone getting injured or losing life due to their own negligence is not my concern. But its definitely a concern if I suffer due to someone's rash driving.

Although not exactly a dilution, the Odisha government has ordered a relaxation of the traffic checks for 3 months. During this period, traffic police department will conduct awareness drives to educate motorists on the traffic rules and the increased fines. This period will also give motorists time to sort out their documents. What happens after 3 months is not clear, whether the centre approved fines will be put in place or some diluted version.

Funnily enough, this declaration came a day after the public and police clashed on a busy junction in Bhubaneswar when the public started demanding to see if the police vehicles had all their documents in order!

[sanjaykk]

Originally Posted by Rodie09

In my personal view I care two hoots about imposing fines on people not wearing helmet or seat belts. I do not really care if these fines have been reduced because I would rather leave it to individual if they care about their safety or not.

At the same time any act by anyone that endangers others' lives, limbs or property must be dealt with harshest penalties. Drunk driving, wrong siding driving and overloading and overspeeding are few such examples.

Well said!!
But the other side of the same coin: If my car hits a non-helmet wearing scooter-ist and god forbid is heavily injured/dies, going by the 'bigger vehicle at fault' theory, I'll be the one to suffer.

[ferrarirules]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

The latest to notify (much) reduced penalties is the state of Gujarat (which is certainly not opposition-ruled), where fines are 10%-50% of what are notified as maximum penalties under the amended Act.

https://www.news18.com/news/auto/guj...t-2303779.html

Just to add clarity to this, they have reduced fines for largely compoundable offenses which MV act provides the provision for changing as per state policy. But the non compoundable offenses like Juvenile driving, Drunk Driving, Jumping traffic light are still at the same price which was notified in the act

[rajvardhanraje]

I believe its a welcome move by the state to dilute some of the penalties. While I agree the steep penalties would dissuade people from breaking the laws, for some of the offences they were quite exorbitant. Drunk driving, underage driving or wrong side driving do deserve harsh penalties. For others they should be reduced to some extent.

One reason why people think it is unfair is that the infrastructure is still in a sad state and the government does not get penalized for it. Nobody is responsible for pothole ridden roads, lack of lane markings, lack of street lights. If you want fines comparable with countries like Germany and Singapore, you should also provide similar infrastructure and then people won't complain.

[speedmiester]

And Karnataka also joins in the game of reducing the penalties proposed by the central government.
Hopefully they don't reduce the penalties for drunk driving, wrong side driving and signal jumpers.

[volkman10]

Originally Posted by speedmiester

And Karnataka also joins in the game of reducing the penalties proposed by the central government.
Hopefully they don't reduce the penalties for drunk driving, wrong side driving and signal jumpers.

When the Union Minister gives the go-ahead to reduce fines, why not ?


State can reduce fines under new Motor Vehicle Act: Minister

He underlined that the purpose of heavy fines is to ensure that citizens drive within the rules and it is not government’s intention to improve revenues with collected fines

Link

[Moto_Hill]

The new Act seems to be working as per the initial reports according to this TOI article

The fear of fines seems to be working. With the penalty for driving an uninsured vehicle going up by up to four times, there’s a rush to buy insurance policies. Online insurance aggregator Policybazaar reported a spike in the sale of insurance policies by up to seven times for two wheelers and three times for four wheelers in the first week of the new law coming into effect on September 1. Sale of helmets has gone up. There’s a scramble to make or renew driving licenses. Compliance with traffic rules has increased

[Mohammed4rmhyd]

An ideal way of infusing discipline on roads will b to seize the offending vehicle. Initially the period of seizure can be a couple of days and it should increase for repeat offences and also gravity of the offence. Authorities should identify a big, barricaded area away from cities and the offender in person made to personally to handover and also collect the vehicle. Adequate security should be arranged but not assured, this will instill fear of leaving the vehicle.This will be a better deterrent than paying hefty fines. Or both options can be given and offender can choose

[Thad E Ginathom]

There is no hope for the future.

It seems that my home state plans on reducing the new penalties.

These penalties, I guess, were not intended to be easy to pay. They were intended to be painful to pay: they are supposed to be punishments.

Some years ago, the then CM of the state reacted to national biker-helmet legislation by instructing the police "not to trouble the people." So the people were not troubled to stay alive. Heads continued, and continue (although the High Court has had a say otherwise) to be smashed.

And now we have the same attitude again, from a different bunch of political leaders. Road safety, indeed, life itself, does not matter. Oh well, I suppose the survivors will vote for them


No parties/politicians have been named in this post, to protect the guilty, which is probably all of them!

[Chetan_Rao]

Karnataka has done it too. The worst bit is the reduction in fines for riding/driving without a valid licence or registration, probably the worst offences that are 100% intentional and deserve absolutely no leeway.

Why not do away with the whole thing, and make the free-for-all official? Oh, I forgot about our 'poor' RTO chaps for a second

[Rajeevraj]

Did not see any info if Karnataka reduced the fine for missing PUC certificate. Considering that was a huge one which resulted in long lines at PUC centers.

Maybe the government and the agencies running it happy with the surge in income coming from that without any additional effort or investment?