VIJAYAWADA: With 360 persons killed and almost 1,500 injured due to road accidents in Vijayawada in 2017, the city police department has intensified its vigil to ensure that the people strictly follow traffic regulations. Police say many of these accidents took place because of people drunk driving. Keeping this in view, they have boosted enforcement drives. In 2018, the police have booked 5,000 traffic violation cases and collected Rs 50 lakh as fines from the violators. In 2017, Rs 70 lakh was collected as fines in more than 5,400 cases.
“In a bid to make the city free from road accidents, the police are leaving no stone unturned in taking stringent action against traffic violators. Drunk driving has become a huge nuisance in urban areas. More than 50 per cent of the accidents are due to alcohol consumption,” DCP (Traffic) Y Ravishankar Reddy said.
When asked if penalties would help the police achieve their goal of curbing traffic violations, Ravishankar said that imposing fines and counselling violators were just some of the measures being taken. “Proposals have been sent to the Road Transport Authority to cancel driving licences of 2,066 persons booked for drunk driving,” he added.
The traffic police has also conducted a survey where it identified more than 200 black spots or accident-prone zones. It has also installed devices to avoid accidents due to over-speeding of vehicles. “Along with enforcement drives, the police administration is also focusing on creating an infrastructure for safety of commuters. If a person is found behind the wheels under the influence for the second time, his/her vehicle will be seized. Filing criminal cases against repeated offenders is also under planning,” he added.