Amdavadis paid the least amount in traffic fines over the past five years in 2022. While it’s encouraging to assume that people are now more compliant with following traffic rules, the change is most likely the result of the police being more forgiving with offenders during an election year.
According to data gathered from the city traffic police, Ahmedabad recorded 2.12 lakh traffic violation cases in 2022 compared to 3.67 lakhs in 2021, a sharp decrease of more than 42%. Fines were collected by the city in 2022 for Rs 10.83 crore as opposed to Rs 18.54 crore in 2021, a decrease of nearly 42%.
It’s interesting to note that, on average, cases filed in the first half of 2022 indicate that close to 20,000 traffic offences were reported monthly, with at least Rs 1 crore in fines being collected. Violations gradually started to decline between July and October, when the police recorded 18,659 cases.
In November, when the Assembly elections were declared and political campaigns picked up steam, it further decreased to 9,459 cases. Drivers who did not use seat belts were found to have broken the law the most in 2022.
In comparison to the previous year, when 72,896 incidents were reported and Rs 3.64 crore in fines were collected, the traffic police registered 80,312 cases and collected Rs 4.01 crore from such violators. Illegal parking violations ranked second in terms of frequency. In 2022, the police reported 17,089 crimes and received Rs 85.71 lakh in fines.
The MoS Home’s Harsh Sanghavi had said on October 21 that there will be no fines for violations committed during the week of Diwali.
“No fine was collected even from parking violators between October 21 and 28. The cops continued to remain lenient towards traffic violators until the polls ended in December,” a police officer said.
The officer added, “Ahead of the election, traffic officials were not very strict with people. Even the state government made it clear that the people will not be fined during Diwali, which was right before the Gujarat election was announced.”
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