Officials of the traffic department in the city are so active that they have challaned only seven vehicles for overloading this year till November 15 and all the seven challans were issued in the month of October.
City roads have been turned into death traps, considering the large number of road accidents resulting innumerable causalities and injuries in which overloading — both commuter and goods wise — plays the main role. Overloading goods in heavy vehicles deteriorates the roads resulting in rise in accidents.
The number of traffic norms defaulters is rising in such a manner that the department has become richer by more than `one crore 64 lakh within ten-and-a-half-months.
Second category from the bottom in terms of imposing fines is for vehicles without number plates. Only 82 vehicle owners have been fined for numberless vehicles between January 01 and November 15, 2013. No vehicles without number plates were fined in May, September, October and half of November.
It must be noted that often vehicles without number plates are used for committing crimes. Recently, a woman was kidnapped from outside City Mall 36 in a numberless SUV and still has not been traced by the police. “We have imposed fines on 51,121 vehicle owners this year till November 15,” said RK Baghel, Deputy Superintendent of Police (traffic).
Maximum number of defaulters have been fined for parking their vehicles in the no parking zone. A total of 13,661 challans were imposed this year with the highest 2,199 imposed in the month of July. Next in the list are challans for triple riding (11,600) and violation of traffic signals (11,473).
The traffic department has fined only 373 from drunken driving although such cases in the city are on the rise. Moreover, no records of death due to drunken driving are available with the department.
Most of the wrath of the traffic department is received by two-wheeler riders with 28,093 challans imposed from Janurary while only 349 matador vans have been fined till November 15 in the current year.