Half of Visakhapatnam’s motorists fined in 2022 driving around scot-free

A staggering 45 per cent of motorists penalised for traffic violations in 2022 are yet to pay their fines, totalling close to ₹24 crore, according to the city police

A staggering 45 per cent of motorists penalised for traffic violations in 2022 are yet to pay their fines, totalling close to ₹24 crore, according to the city police.

“In 2022, the city traffic police issued close to 20 lakh e-challans amounting to fines of ₹50 crore. Of these, nine lakh e-challans amounting to fines of ₹22 crore are yet to be paid by the violators,” Additional DCP (Traffic) Sheikh Arifullah said.

According to the traffic police, Gajuwaka traffic sub-division has generated the most number of e-challans followed by Dwaraka Sub-Division, West and East Sub-divisions.

“Usually, many motorists ignore paying their challans. They only pay up if they have been fined for more than one traffic violation. Whenever we intercept some motorists who are found to be blatantly violating traffic rules such as not wearing a helmet or jumping a red light, we check if they have any prior violations. If we find any, we ask them to pay the fines on the spot,” a senior traffic police official said.

Till a few years ago, the most common violation among motorists was to ride without wearing a helmet. Following large-scale awareness drives, there has been a visible improvement in this area, police said. Again, at the peak of COVID-19, a common penalty was the ₹135-fine slapped on those not wearing masks. Once the pandemic declined, we have stopped booking those cases, traffic police said.

The most common violations now are triple riding, using mobile phone while driving, wrong parking, driving without a licence and speeding, according to officials.

“While not wearing a helmet attracts the lowest penalty of around ₹345, dangerous driving and driving in the opposite direction on a one-way route will attract a hefty fine of nearly ₹2,000. In East Sub-Division limits, around 100 e-challans are generated per day,” said Inspector of Traffic East Sub-division, Ch Shanmukha Rao.