Traffic police may come home to collect unpaid fines

If you break traffic rules often, the police just might pay a visit to your home to collect unpaid fines or tow your vehicle. Tired of trying to flag down motorists with multiple violations, the Bangalore Traffic Police (BTP) has started tracking down vehicle owners.

“In the past, we would keep an eye out for repeat offenders, but this was not yielding desired results,” said a senior police officer.

A few months ago, they started the practice of naming and shaming regular offenders. Details of 500 vehicles with the most number of violations were posted on the BTP website and its social media accounts along with the name and address of the owners.

The 500 vehicles are involved in 22,376 cases but are yet to pay the fines. An autorickshaw (123 cases) tops the list, which ends with a private car (36). The maximum number of violations involve motorcycles.

This move, the police hoped, would result in people paying up pending fines. However, the success rate was just 50%.

“Now, we have started visiting the offenders at their registered address, talk to the vehicle-owner and get them to pay up. If not, their vehicles are confiscated,” said R. Hitendra, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic).

Since the start of 2017, BTP has tried several methods to persuade motorists to follow traffic rules from 'Zero Tolerance' junctions to towing vehicles and spot checking squads. However, the number of violations continues to rise, officers say.

Last year, the BTP recorded around 91 lakh violations across the city. This year, till March alone, around 26 lakh cases have been recorded, partly due to stricter enforcement of rules.

‘Locating owners of commercial vehicles not easy’

A sizeable portion of the Top 500 violators comprising commercial vehicles, but it is not easy to track down the owners and recover the fine amount, as most of the addresses mentioned on the registration certificate are outdated or do not exist, officials say.

“Autorickshaws and other goods vehicles often change hands several times. The current owner may not have updated the address in the records. As a result, we end up going to the wrong address. Often, challans don't reach the current owner,” said R. Hitendra, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic).

Top 500 violators (vehicles)

Maxi cab: 18

HGV: 37

Cars: 64

Autorickshaws: 122

Motorcycles: 244

Number of cases: 22,376