The motor vehicles department has stepped-up measures to enforce road safety in Kochi, especially during night.
As part of the initiative, the department has given shape to a special night-patrolling squad that works at night round-the-week. Earlier, the vehicles department had conducted inspections during day time only.
The squad has so far penalized over 100 vehicles for offences like use of high beam lights, honking, overloading and helmetless riding. A sum of Rs 45,800 was collected as fine from offenders.
“Traffic rule violations during night are showing an increasing trend over the period. Though there are police squads doing night patrols, they are keen on ensuring law and order situation. Violation of motor vehicles rules are mostly ignored,” said Ernakulam RTO Sadik Ali P H.
According to MVD reports, illegal use of high-beam lights constitutes a major chunk of violations reported by the night squad.
“As many as 30 cases of using high-beam lights were reported during the past couple of days’ inspection. This is followed by excessive honking during night, especially by inter-state tourist vehicles,” said an MVD official.
Numerous cases of overloading of trucks were also reported by the squad. “Trucks, mostly from southern Kerala, were used for transporting timber to Perumbavoor region in Kochi either through national highways or MC Road. Truckers always prefer the night time because of the absence of enforcement squads. Over the past two days, owners of five tippers were fined for overloading,” said Ali.
Earlier, the police and MVD had installed CCTV cameras at major junctions.
This had reduced cases of traffic rule violations. But frequent road works, Metro rail construction and traffic diversions had made these cameras dysfunctional.
Date: November 03, 2016