Motorists, beware! Your violations are being recorded

Seema Sunil, a businesswoman from the city was always concerned about the extent of traffic rule violations in the city. She was particularly upset with those violating the helmet rule with utter disregard. But there was little she could do. Not anymore. For the past several weeks, she has helped the traffic police bring to book some of those violators and is doing her bit to enforce the court order.
All that she would do was click photos of the violators whenever she comes across one on the road, post those pictures on an app launched by police.The cops would take care of the rest. They would track down the violator with the help of the vehicle registration number on the photo and slap a penalty.
Not just Seema, scores of citizens from the city have joined hands with police in bringing order on the roads with the help of Police – E Eye app. Since its launch, 17,000 people have downloaded the app and police have received 23,979 photos of traffic violations. Based on the complaints, cops served 7,201 photo challans to the violators and collected a penalty of Rs 39,46,700.
"When I travel along with my husband in our car, I notice lots of motorists and pillion riders not wearing helmets. I felt police alone cannot control the violations. So, I started taking photos and uploading them on the app,’’ says Seema. "There seems to be a drop in the number of violations now," she says.
With a meagre 220 traffic cops for a city of more than two million and a city of 13 lakh-odd vehicles, including nine lakh two wheelers, it’s a daunting task for police to curb violations. Hence, the city traffic police developed the android application with the help of Aveon Infotech.
Some like Aravindhan Ramasamy, who settled down in the city on his return from the US, appears to be on mission mode in helping police curb violations. Aravindhan has sent 2021 photos of motorists violating rules. Of these, police have penalised 909 violators.
"More people should come forward to help police like Aravindhan. It would contribute a lot to reduce traffic violations," said assistant commissioner of police (traffic, west) Raj Khanna.
He said the photos should explain the nature of violation and display the registration number of violating vehicles clearly. Once the cops track down the violator, photo challans imposing penalty would be generated and would manually be handed over to the motorists.
Seema says issuing challans at the doorstep of the violators would have better result than spot fines. "When the photo challans are issued at houses, family members of the violators would also get to know about the violation. This will have a better deterrent effect and help reduce traffic violations drastically," said Seema.