Hyderabad: Though traffic violations have come down from 2.60 lakh in January 2015 to 2.40 lakh in January 2016, traffic cops say that this is still a high number for one month, given that not all violations are booked. Traffic cops and Transport department officials are, however, confident that the drive to suspend driving licences from this month-end will further reduce violations. Psychologists and psychiatrists suggest that there should be “consistent enforcement and the time taken to punish the violator should not be long” to have a greater impact on the mindset of motorists to follow rules.
About 100 driving licences were suspended by the RTA for repeated drunk driving and overloading. It took more than a month in a majority of the cases for the licence to be suspended from the date of the case being booked. “The longer it takes to punish the violator, the lesser the impact. Every motorist feels that his or her work is more important than the others on the road. Also, jobs now a days demand of the employees to be aggressive to achieve targets and time-lines, and most of the time the employee carries that aggression on to the road while driving. This results in violation of rules and also in not bothering that he or she is responsible for the safety of other road users too,” said Dr K. Prashant, consultant psychologist with Yashoda Hospitals.
Consultant psychiatrist at Apollo Hospital Dr Minhaj Nasirabadi said the punishment should be severe if the motorist is booked for violating traffic rules even after his or her licence has been suspended once.
“Measures like sending them to jail will definitely help in changing the mindset of motorists and instilling fear that they cannot go free after violating rules repeatedly,” he said. Deputy commissioner of police (traffic) A.V. Ranganath said they had to follow the rules and the motorist had to be given seven to 10 days to make his or her defence in response to the notice served for suspension of licence. “The traffic police will identify multiple violators and write to the road transport officers who will issue notices to the motorists. We will try to bring down the time to 15 days, i.e. from the date of the case being booked to the licence being suspended,” he said.
