Chennai police warn delivery executives against violating traffic rules

Police conduct awareness campaign and also enforce rules strictly

The city traffic police have decided to monitor food delivery personnel flouting traffic rules and take action against the violators.

With more and more app-based food and grocery delivery services  operating in the city, the number of food delivery personnel (food delivery partners) engaged by these aggregators has increased manifold.

As these food delivery services commit to deliver the goods at a short time, the food delivery partners are forced to drive at a high speed.

The police have noticed that due to the nature of payment terms, most food delivery partners commit road traffic rules violation such as signal jumping, driving on the wrong side of the road, driving without helmet, speaking on the cellphone while driving, and over speeding, endangering the lives of other motorists.

To curtail these violations, awareness programmes were regularly conducted for the food delivery partners with respect to the importance of traffic rules and the penalties for violation. In addition to these awareness activities, a special enforcement drive was conducted on Wednesday focusing on those violating traffic rules particularly, not wearing helmet and wrong side driving. During this special drive, 978 cases were registered and fine totalling ₹1,35,400 was imposed.

"We had a meeting with delivery managers of major food aggregators and other e-commerce service providers on March 25. One of the food delivery aggregators stated that it did not have any plan to launch its 10 minute delivery in the city. Subsequently, we conducted the special drive which was intended to create awareness and deter the food delivery personnel from violating traffic rules. It is for their safety and the safety of general public. We have informed the aggregators about the violation for further course of action," said Kapil Kumar Saratkar, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic).