Mumbai: Navi Mumbai traffic police have followed the footsteps of its counterpart in Mumbai and suspended over 4,085 driving licences for a period of three months, who were found repeatedly flouting traffic rules. The motorists who were found jumping signals, speeding and drunk driving between January 1 and September 30, had to lose their licence for a short period.
A senior traffic police officer said, after the heavy fines stopped acting as a deterrent for motorists flouting rules, the Navi Mumbai Traffic Police resorted to the Supreme Court’s directives issued in 2015. “Last year, Navi Mumbai Commissioner of Police (CP) Sanjay Kumar, had ordered the traffic unit to follow the SC directives to put a stop to the traffic violations. The SC directives states that licence of a driver could be suspended for a period of not less than three months,” said the officer.
Acting on the CP’s orders, Navi Mumbai traffic police started keeping a database of violators and sending proposals to the Regional Transport Offices (RTO) with the driving licence numbers of traffic offenders. In the first nine months of the year, Navi Mumbai traffic police had forwarded a proposal to suspend the licences of 4,240 drivers, of which 4,085 licences were suspended. These suspended licences will be released after three months.
In 2015, the Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety headed by Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan had issued specific instructions to all States and Union Territories on suspending driving licences. An official said, most suspended licences were of motorists who had jumped the red signal (1,323) and used the cell phone while driving (1,008), while others included speeding and drunk driving.
Recently, the Mumbai Traffic Police have sent a list of 752 licence-holders to RTO for licence suspension where these violations were committed more than thrice. If a motorist is found driving during the licence suspension, stricter action will follow, police warned.
