Mysuru: The Mysuru City Police have intensified their traffic violation fine collection drive along with resuming drunken driving tests. This comes after the fear of COVID is completely off the minds of the people, as well as the Department.

From Jan.1 to March 31, 2022, a total of 3,41,693 traffic violation cases were registered. Including the Rs. 17,48,500 that was collected from the Court of Law, the Police have collected Rs. 1,10,25,300 in three months.

For the record, the City Police stands second in the State when it comes to traffic fine collection as between 2019 and 2021 — traffic offenders have coughed up Rs. 23.6 crore. Bengaluru City stands in the first place with a collection of Rs. 329 crore during the same period. Mysuru is closely followed by Hubballi-Dharwad where Rs. 18.9 crore was collected.

Of the total fines collected in Mysuru from January this year, Rs. 51,24,300 has been collected during on-the-spot checking on the roads. A majority of the fines levied is for helmet-less riding where 5,612 cases have been booked. 1,024 cases have been registered against persons for not wearing seatbelts and 3,629 cases have been booked against those pillion riders who do not wear helmets.

Over 3,27,365 cases have been registered including Field Traffic Violation Report (FTVR) — hand-held device to capture various violations — reckless driving, over-speeding, driving under the influence of alcohol, speaking on mobile phone while driving, signal jumping, driving over footpaths, defective silencers, driving sans uniforms, zig-zag driving and triple riding.

Last year, from Jan. 1 to March 31,  a total of 12,28,285 cases were booked where the Police collected Rs. 5,77,32,650 as fines. In 2020, during the same period, 10,90,841 cases were booked and Rs. 8,99,41,900 have been collected.

In the renewed drunken driving tests this year, the city Police booked 243 cases in three months while in 2021, only nine drunken driving cases were registered as there was                                                                        a fear that the COVID virus spread due to the breath-analyser tests. In 2020, from January to March, 315 drunken driving cases were booked.

Saving lives is our priority

Imposing and collecting fines are not the only intention of Traffic Police. We do not want to fill the State coffers by collecting maximum penalties. Fines are imposed so that the offender does not commit the mistake again. Rather, saving lives is our priority. People on roads must follow traffic rules and many times, one person’s carelessness leads to another person’s loss of life. We have seen that many innocent lives lost or many maimed for life due to carelessness. The violator gets away after paying a fine but the other person suffers for no fault of his.”

—Dr. Chandragupta, City Police Commissioner