NEW DELHI: As many as 4,000 to 5,000 people are prosecuted for traffic violations every day since the new challan rates came into effect on September 1, Delhi Police has said. According to the official data available with the police, till Friday, a total of 254 drivers were issued challans for drink driving. The city police issued challans to 1,229 people for driving without a seat belt; 4,097 for driving without a helmet; 1,527 for dangerous driving and 2,698 for red signal violation.
In July this year, the Parliament had passed the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2019, which seeks to tighten road traffic regulations such as the issuance of driving licence and imposes stricter penalties for violations to improve road safety. Higher traffic penalties came to be levied across the country from September 1 under the revised Motor Vehicles Act.
On September 1, the Delhi Traffic Police prosecuted over 3,900 people, including 45 for drink driving, 557 for dangerous driving, 42 for over-speeding, 207 for red light jump, 195 for driving without seat belt, 28 for triple riding and 336 for riding without helmet.
The new challan rate for dangerous driving is up to Rs 5,000, up from Rs 1,000 earlier. For drink driving, the penalty was raised from Rs 2,000 to Rs 10,000, while driving without qualification would now attract a penalty of Rs 10,000, up from Rs 500 earlier.