ARIYALUR: Be it a car, bike or lorry, if you dare to use the phone while driving through the roads in Ariyalur district, then there is a possibility of getting your driving license suspended for three months. Yes, the Regional Transport Office (RTO) officials are up on their heels to catch the violators and slap them with fine or penalised them as per regulations besides suspending licenses.
This even applies to the headset or hands-free users who bluntly violating traffic rules by using the phone while driving. With the roads in and around Ariyalur see many accidents despite speed breakers at every interval, the district administration has come up with surprise checking at various points. As many cement factories and their mines are situated here, innumerable lorries ply on the roads round the clock. Due to rash driving, accidents occurred often in the district.
In order to prevent the accidents, the RTO has been taking several initiatives including conducting awareness programmes for the lorry drivers. Now, the transport officials have been keen on finding and penalizing the drivers, who are on phone, while driving vehicles. The RTO has also warned that the violators driving licenses will be suspended for three months. "The rule is already there and we are just enforcing it," said an official.For the past two days, the driving licenses of two motorists and a lorry driver have been disqualified, which means they could not drive vehicle for three-long-months.
According to a data given by RTO, Ariyalur, as many as 408 driving licenses have been obtained for violating the traffic norms from June 2017 to June 2018. Speaking to Express, R Jayadevraj, RTO said, "We have first caught a lorry driver who is seen using the headset while travelling. On seeing him, we gave a chase and finally managed to stop the lorry. After we checked the call history, the driver has spoken six minutes using the headset.
Wasting no time, we have seized the original driving license of the driver and disqualified him for three months."Similarly, a motorist who got caught said had spoken for 16 minutes. "These are some of the instances which spike in the number of road accidents in the district.
We have now enforced strict guidelines so as to curb the incidents as per direction given issued by Supreme Court," he added. Also, four lorries have been caught for loading overweight than the recommended limit. ADSP Periyayya, Keezhapalur inspector Subbaiah and traffic inspector Jayachandran are involved in the inspection