[nkishore_007]

I welcome this move! The fines have to be stricter for vehicle owners to be responsible.

1. The other aspects that someone needs to keep in mind is how they empower Traffic authority to impose such fines. On the spot fines is NOT going to help much within the city limits considering the pile of traffic that ensues in case one is pulled up. Not all roads have width/bandwidth to sustain such situations.

2. The RTO (or whichever new authority takes over) should consider putting the onus of address change/relocation, change of ownership, etc. in a much better and convenient way. I, personally, do not prefer going to a Govt office (unless its urgent) due to the the significant under-table activities that keeps happening for anything that needs to be done as per the book.

3. The vehicle owner must be held responsible for any change in address not updated within a stipulated time period. They must put a fine associated to this. It should be something like renewing the vehicle information every year, or whenever there is a change.

4. The license granting/approval system also needs to be stricter. Commercial vehicle drivers MUST go through some sort of counselling on traffic temperament/behavior. For the educated lot, there should be PIP (performance improvement plan) kinda sessions. The educated lot is equally to blame! Irony, they can afford to buy a 4 wheeler, but cannot afford some basic traffic sense which is free of cost!

5. Invest more on the "on the move" patrols mounted with cameras (No one can go into self denial!). The barricades do not make much sense unless there is a security concern.

[braindead]

I find this to be a social issue as much as a legal issue.

At the end of the day, nothing is going to change till we start behaving in a civil manner on the roads (or elsewhere). I find most of the road users very selfish. As a society, we have no cohesive identity. Most of us do not consider the convenience and safety of the person next to us on the road, and do not credit him the same right to the road as ourselves.

I am not going to pretend I know the real reason for this or that I may be able to propose an effective solution.

Maybe shaming the petty offenders is the way. The trick is getting the people to start being nice to each other on the road and think as the lawbreakers as "Not one of us".

[saurabh2711]

Originally Posted by nkishore_007

I welcome this move! The fines have to be stricter for vehicle owners to be responsible.

Totally agree with you on all the points. The laws made/suggested should be implimented with utmost strictness as possible, else it is of no use.

Originally Posted by braindead

I find this to be a social issue as much as a legal issue.... Maybe shaming the petty offenders is the way. The trick is getting the people to start being nice to each other on the road and think as the lawbreakers as "Not one of us".

Totally agree on this. There is a thread by a Fellow member where he shared, what he faced to get a license in a foreign country. That is the ideal process to get a driver's license. impliment that here, with no margin of compromise.
The point is people get these licenses without hassle & they haven't realy earned them. Hence there is no respect for the law.

Make them earn it & see the difference. That should sort out the major problem.

A point was raised earlier in the thread reagrding the increased corruption or bribe that will arise from this move. For example how much will be a bribe for a 5000Rs. /- offence. A wild guess taken from current trends: If a person is caught without license first quote is 300 or 500 & end settlement is 100/- at least. So the margin is 33% to 20%. Appying the same to new rates on offence of 5000/-, it comes to 1733/- to 1000/-. This too stands a huge amount, of which people should be afraid of, even in case of corruption.

On the contrary, why not the government set-up a separate fast track court to handle these offenders & setup a reward for the police officers who send these offenders to court. Set the reward point to police officers of 20-30% of fine that they made offenders pay. SO this becomes a legal money they earned & making them happy to earn extra "OVER THE TABLE".

However, this move can have a flip side as well, where innocents can be send as well. We Indians are champion in find a workaround for every new law. Who knows they find a workaround for this as well.

[Srikji]

Welcome move. Of course there is room for improvement but it can be added later. The main thing is enforcement. Even if the cops are ready to put a 'documented' penalty, the offenders try to bribe the cops and who doesn't get lured by easy money? The best way I feel is to incentivize the cops based on number of cases booked. The incentive should be decent enough that they stop taking bribes.

[Diesel_convert]

The fines need to high yes, but so does the burden of proof on the policemen. With out video evidence no fines should be allowed.

How many times have we got a ticket towards month end when there is no offence from our side. It has happened to me multiple times.

Also a disappointing focus on speeding, which has not proven to be the cause of the majority of accidents anywhere in the world. Its usually driver distraction and bad road design.

I like the fines for drunk driving though.

I also see no fines for not obeying lane discipline and trucks staying on the slow lane.

Am sure the 20kmph overloaded truck races occupying all lanes on our highways cause a lot of accidents to faster moving traffic.

I also wish they implement a minimum speed limit on Highways.

I would say the whole thing has not been thought through fully. Quite disappointing from this government.

[binand]

Originally Posted by Diesel_convert

I would say the whole thing has not been thought through fully. Quite disappointing from this government.

The government (going by Mr. Gadkari's past statements) is planning a full overhaul of the MV Act of 1988. These fines form just a small section of it. Typical of ToI, it looks as if they picked some choice bits from a (possibly leaked) draft of the proposal, without mentioning any additional details. Please don't go by just this one ToI article to form your opinion.

[Diesel_convert]

Originally Posted by binand

The government (going by Mr. Gadkari's past statements) is planning a full overhaul of the MV Act of 1988. These fines form just a small section of it. Typical of ToI, it looks as if they picked some choice bits from a (possibly leaked) draft of the proposal, without mentioning any additional details. Please don't go by just this one ToI article to form your opinion.

Thanks for pointing it out.

I should have checked the source! ToI has zero credibility.

Will wait for the full act.

[amit]

Typical 'mai baap' attitude of the government. They give us worse then third rate infrastructure but penalties are from first world countries. Let them first make proper first class infrastructure & then talk about fine's and penalties. The point about obstructing free flow of traffic, you can't have bank's & commercial complex's on the road with no parking for even one car and then expect free flowing traffic. Heck even hospital's don't have parking facility and if they do it's only for staff so where the hell are the patient's visitors going to go? Government departments are working in isolation & it's high time they synchronise their work. They also need to have radio taxi's now. So many times it's taxi's that park anywhere and even double park waiting for customer's (when customer's come they refuse to go where they want!), will the cops fine taxi's? Lot of support infrastructure has to be built then you can think about penalties.

Besides, what about cops? Do you have a honest police force? Who is going to decide rash driving & racing for example? Like in the west, there has to be cctv all over, even on police bikes & car's so bribery & arbitrary penalties are minimised.

Ask me, the first thing government should do is make visible flashing lights and louder sirens for emergency vehicles. Abroad you can hear & see a emergency vehicle from half a km away. Here, you can't hear it if it's right behind you! I once saw a Ashok Leyland Dost running around as an ambulance! In Mumbai! Sit with auto manufacturer's and make a proper ambulance. It's shameful to see a Maruti Omni & Tata Ace carrying probably accident victims to hospitals

[onedotsix]

Not sure if this has been mentioned already, but there needs to be much more stiffer fine for running without tail lamps/reflectors(Especially the heavy vehicles). Also there needs to be a hefty fine for driving with headlights switched off at night, like some crazy autowallahs do in Bangalore.

[GautamC]

While all these measures are good, what would actually (especially in reducing corruption) help is a National License Tracking system, where all a cop has to do is to log in your license into a hand-held device / radio it in, to issue you a fine, which can be paid/settled via an online portal.
How Many ppl pay the cop a bribe to save them from going to the local chowky where they have been caught to get there license? Cops take advantage of this too, knowing (especially if the driver is not local), the driver would rather just pay a bribe and get his license back than have to go to the chowky after 2-3 days to get his license.
If i had this option, I wouldn't even think twice, and not try to 'Patao' the cop!

[ashokabs]

There are many problems in India of a different nature than those of developed countries. Firstly there are few offenders and so easy to catch them. Secondly, the Cops are reasonably well paid so corruption for traffic offences is not worth it. Thirdly, most citizens would be scared to bribe a cop. When I drove around in the US I found that everyone was scared of a cop. Fourthly, in a city like Delhi, which probably has the maximum habitual offenders, there are far too few traffic cops.

We have heard of high tech solutions like cameras to read license plates etc etc but nothing ever comes of it. I think these high tech solutions are just a blind to stop taking any action on the grounds there aren't enough traffic cops.

Licensing authority needs to be overhauled and everyone should go through a driving test all over again and be re-certified. It is a great expense but essential as most drivers do not know the traffic rules. If the govt can implement high tech number plates which was all crap as an idea and without much benefit re-testing will be very beneficial. Then slap everyone with massive fines and make sure at least 3-4000 people are actually jailed instead of only fined. Word gets around and it will really act as a deterrent. Driving drunk should be mandatory 3 days jail. Driving without a valid license should also be 3-4 days in jail.In other cases of offences the offender should be made to go to a police station at least 30 km from his house to see a traffic safety film. These should be held regularly in each police station every sunday afternoon - spoil the sunday and be really inconvenient. Mumbai used to do this for speeding and it really worked. I am talking about the late 60's.

We have to be innovative and take steps which will work in India. Forget about what happens in other countries.

[mvadg]

Great to see this discussion well underway on TBHP! I liked what Secretariat (caning) and braindead (our attitude to others) had to say.

I've been thinking about how we are even unable to drive on a straight elevated highway (BETL, here in Bangalore, which is just about 10KMs and is nothing but a bridge with 2 narrow lanes in each direction ) without accidents every single day. The cop who appears occasionally with his speedgun and fines some random, mostly law-abiding drivers and meets his 'targets'.

We have enough rules/laws already
There are enough laws already to take care of the rogue drivers, but the tacit encouragement of antisocial behaviour from < fill this in, I'm clueless> has made every one of us criminals.

Loopholes in our 'system'
Leaving aside the fact that this whole new system could be something TOI came up with, our babus have come up with some atrocious ideas that will haunt us forever. My first reaction was like everyone's - let's get them! But reality dawned on me the next instant:
1) Corruption - discounted fines making the cops richer.
2) The other big problem - they profile people, so most BHPians will end up paying; you think a rogue driver will care to stop?
3) Poor / spotty / targeted enforcement
4) No redressal mechanism - if you have a ticket against your car and want to appeal? Good luck!
5) Wilful misuse of official machinery
and more...

Are we doing everything we can right now with the present system in place?
A resounding no!

My conclusion: The babus always have some motive other than actually improving conditions for citizens. If we could come up with this list of pros and cons as laymen, should/could they not have figured out a much better system after studying systems and human behavior around the world? They are paid to do that after all!

Let them do a pilot study first and come up with actual data that shows things have improved after implementing stiffer fines and then we have something to consider. [assuming they dont cook up data, which they are wont to do]

And no amount of posting here will make any difference until we address our concerns to the decision makers.

[SLK]

Originally Posted by ashokabs

There are many problems in India of a different nature than those of developed countries. .......

We have to be innovative and take steps which will work in India. Forget about what happens in other countries.

+1
Increase in fines in isolation is NOT a step in the right direction. Our system is flawed and broken, with the morals of one set of commoners completely self centered/ while the other set being completely ignorant. So basically, we can't change our people, so our systems need to be able to serve our population.

The first step should have been to implement the existing rules properly, use technology or whatever it takes. Fines to all offender or at least most of them rather than choosing the easy targets who can afford the fines.

I'm yet to see a desi cab being fined for breaking the signal as they just won't pay! - don't have money/ license/ license already impounded.

Rs. 100 or Rs. 5000 for breaking a signal makes no difference if the fine will only be imposed on easy targets, who would either agree to bribe or pay the fine.

I'm having a hard time even imagining an auto rickshaw or a m-cycle paying a 5k fine for breaking a signal. He would not pay and he can not pay 10% of his vehicle's cost in a fine, he will be left alone by cops and he'll continue to merrily break signals, while cops will look for opportunities to fine private vehicles on orange signals. In the end the culture continues and anyone who sees a signal without a cop, jumps.

This in isolation is copying the west, without looking at the composition of your traffic!

[ACM]

See a lot of scope for miss use at the implementation level.
Lets the cops ask for bigger bribes and get them.
People who used to pay the fine would now maybe consider paying bribes.
Have seen a lot of high handedness on the part of he traffic police at times this will increase the same.

While a deterrent is necessary the traffic police for example should make bikers buy a helmet and come back to take their bikes. And the points system too is good but the fines are not T the right value point in my view.

[nkishore_007]

Originally Posted by SLK

+1
Increase in fines in isolation is NOT a step in the right direction.

I beg to disagree. Imposing hefty fines might not be "THE" step in "that" right direction, but it is "ONE STEP" towards it. If it makes one person out of ten in not overtaking from left or over speeding or whatever, it is a winning situation.

Agreed that the system needs to be changed, but then what extent of change are we talking about? I see the need for radical & fundamental changes. Do we see that happen? Will an authority take ownership and take strict decision/s which helps 51 people out of 100, while other 49 frown? It is still a majority, ain't it? If this is not a possibility, then we take one step at a time. And the very first step that one can take is to mend their own self (that is a start, for sure)! And if hefty fines acts as a catalyst in making us change, so be it! In this case, the end justifies the means.