Sunday, December 5, 2010

Traffic Police Calling

It seems that the department of traffic in Bangalore is receiving several complaints from motorists and two wheeler owners about the police constables suddenly stopping or chasing their vehicles on busy roads and signals to verify vehicle related documents, resulting in vehicles coming from behind ramming into the other. Many a times these constables can be seen running after the vehicle and trying to catch the offender from back resulting in either of them getting hurt or even falling from the vehicle and getting injured. In one case the police caught hold of the two wheeler handle so firmly, the driver was thrown off the vehicle and sustained multiple injuries. In another case the police while holding the door handle of a car was dragged several meters away! Thanks to number of complaints, the police authorities have now woken up to issue clarification in the matter.

According to the Additional Commissioner (traffic), an officer of the rank of Assistant sub inspector (ASI) or officer above them only can stop motorists and penalize traffic rule violators. They are equipped with a black berry smart phone that records and monitor every fine and offence. City police commissioner has further clarified that unless the motorists have violated any traffic rule the police have no authority to stop the vehicle merely for the sake of checking the documents. This implies that one must be aware of all the traffic rules and if one is confident that he or she has not broken any rule, they have every right to question any cop who stops them.

So far so good, but is it so easy in reality? In majority of the places traffic is manned by police constables and ASI may not be there all the time at all the places. In such a situation, if a constable stops to verify documents, can one dare to refuse? If refused, he can very well tell the ASI later that you have violated some rule and can get you a notice issued at a later date! They can quote 101 reasons for traffic violation if bent upon to teach the motorist a lesson for arguing or questioning their authority. However, the only silver lining is the assurance and press statement given by the ACP (traffic) that based on motorists complaint against the errant traffic police and if found guilty, departmental action would be initiated against them.



13 comments:

  1. Important piece of information . The traffic Police have become nuisance these days .

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  2. wonder how many people will bother to complain though

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  3. Come Diwali and we brace ourselves for overzealous police constables and unnecessary fines.

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  4. Comments via Buzz-
    Vidya Sury - so much easier said than done. traffic cops - no one dares to argue with them, or they'll have you standing and doing that all day long!

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  5. most of the time one has to bear what is stored for him-many will simply move on.

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  6. traffic police are just a bunch of bored and greedy people!
    they just love to talk...they'll talk give lectures and eventually get paid for it!
    and we thought we pay for our mistakes..its their fear that makes us pay !
    so many times..even though I have all my documents in place..these people would jump in front of my bike and i would be scared to the core and scared to lose some money right away!

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  7. traffic police themselves violating the rules and regulations then whom to blame.

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  8. I have one awesome photo to share about these traffic police and how they play the role of a 'thief' to catch the offenders.

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  9. I read Delhi traffic police have a facebook page now, where u can upload pics of offenders or ask them questions. Haven't tried it myself, but may be it can act as a contact media with public and police.

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  10. Its a typical loophole but very difficult to plugin

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  11. All this clarification is fine but will cops steeped in corrupt ways change and how many of the big Indian middle class actually bother to complain or fight?...they prefer to bribe(most of us are guilty of the same).

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  12. Everything sounds fine in words but reality beckons to be different. After all, our nation is the one where we threaten our litl brats by the word police. Such is the image of police. Just yesterday, I saw a traffic police thrashing literally a call center vehicle driver in the middle of a traffic jam!

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