Errant motorists beware of the Mumbai traffic police as the operations of the traffic wing of the city police has gone computerized. All the 25 traffic divisions are linked to the traffic police headquarters and any traffic violation is immediately recorded at the headquarters with details of the violations against the license holder’s name which is fed into the data bank of traffic violators in the city.

 

This fool proof system- Demerit Point System which is fully operational since early 2014 will immediately link the past record of the offender booked for fresh charges of traffic violation. The Demerit Point System gives an edge to the traffic police over errant motorist who are habitual traffic crime offenders and even helps in corroborating clinching evidence for revocation of the license of habitual offenders.

 

A middle-level police officer pointed out that in the last five years traffic offences which are relatively serious were on the rise and updated record of offences committed by habitual offenders was absent since the divisions were not linked up to a centralized system at the traffic headquarters.

 

Immediately when action is initiated against n erring motorist, it is fed into the computerized data bank of the traffic police department. The record immediately creates a profile of the offender, underlining the traffic offences committed by the offender in the past.

 

Depending on the seriousness of the traffic violations, either the motorist is let off after he pays the fine or his license is suspended and appropriate penal action is initiated against the erring motorist or his license is revoked and arrested if the crime is serious in nature like drunken driving, death of a pedestrian due to reckless driving and negligence.

 

“Our anti-drunken driving drive has borne excellent results. Till date around 54,000 drivers have been sent to simple imprisonment and around 11,000 cases have been registered so far. In the last three months, approximately 1800 drivers were sent to simple imprisonment. We have also been successful in our drive against two-wheeler riders not wearing helmets while riding on city roads. By and large the Mumbai traffic department has been effective in traffic control, preventing road accidents and checking on compulsive traffic offenders following the department adopting computer friendly tools in its traffic management system,” claimed the traffic police official.