BENGALURU: Bengaluru Traffic Police (BTP) is within sniffing distance of registering one crore traffic violation cases this year. As of September 30, BTP had filed 80,93,719 complaints. In other words, an average 21 cases of traffic violations are filed every minute. In 2015 and 2016, BTP had filed 76,26,671 and 91,80,438 cases respectively, averaging around 15 and 18 cases every minute.
BTP officials, however, maintain that the cases filed do not reflect the actual number of traffic violations committed in the city.
In 10 years, the number of cases registered by BTP, under the Indian Motor Vehicles Act and other sections, has increased nine-fold. While a total of 14.44 lakh violations were registered by the police in 2007, projections estimate that BTP will register around 1.08 crore cases this year. Meanwhile, BTP has already exceeded in amount of fines collected in 2017 as of September 30.
Of the violations categorised under IMV Act, BTP has filed the maximum number of complaints for wrong parking in the past three years. While 21.12 lakh complaints were filed in 2015, 22.01 lakh cases were filed in 2016. By September 2017, 18.14 lakh cases of wrong parking were registered with projections of around 24 lakh cases for the current year.
Riding without helmet was the second most common offence, as 17.78 lakh cases were registered in 2015, 18.86 lakh in 2017 and 16.63 lakh as of September 30 this year. In 2016, another section — pillion rider without helmet — was added to the Act, making it the third most common offence detected by BTP. In 2016, 17.34 lakh cases were registered, while the number was 13.78 lakh this year.
(with inputs from Tushar Kaushik)
30pc cases booked under automation
While the number of automation cases was only about three per cent of the total cases filed in 2007, as of 2017 automation cases comprised of more than 30 per cent of the cases filed. The number had exceeded 50 per cent in 2016, when 48.82 lakh of the 91.8 lakh cases were automated.