Hyderabad: For the first time in Hyderabad, a 14-year-old boy who was found guilty of underage driving, was punished with four weeks imprisonment and sent to a juvenile home on Wednesday.
On Thursday, 10 parents were jailed for allowing their minor children to drive, under section 180 of the Motor Vehicles Act by the ninth special Metropolitan Magistrate K. Altaf Hussain.
Police say they are booking charge-sheets against the minor drivers, the owners of the vehicles and the parents of the minor.
DCP Traffic A.V. Ranganath said the underage driver and parents have to attend counselling at the Traffic Training Institute and later both parent and child will be prosecuted and so both have to attend court.
“Courts have already been harsh with parents and many of them were imprisoned. On Wednesday, a minor for the first time was imprisoned and was sent to a juvenile home,” Mr Ranganath said.
Vinod Kumar Kanumala, a road safety expert, says it’s the right move and will set a great example to the entire nation to curb underage driving. “Staying in a juvenile home for a day will have a big impact on his/mind and the minors will be scared to repeat the offence,” he said. Once children are imprisoned, parents will be more cautious and control their kids better, he said. “If police book ten more such cases continuously, and if the court jails all of them, then we will surely see a change in parents as well as in the minors,” Mr Kannumala said.
