Over 6,000 cases of repeat violations need clarification on who was driving the vehicle 2,500 violators may lose their driving licence

Nearly 2,500 motorists may have their driving licences suspended for repeated traffic violations. The Traffic police has written to the Road Transport Authority (RTA) to suspend the driving licences of motorists violating traffic rules like signal jumping, drunken driving, cell phone driving, over-loading or overspeeding more than three times.

The RTA has already suspended about 500 driving licences this year. The traffic police had announced in February that threetime offenders would be recommended for suspension, and the count of violations commenced from March 2016.

Though over 6,000 cases of repeated violations of specified traffic rules have been found, traffic police could not establish whether it involved the same driver. For example, a large number of motorists were caught on camera at junctions for signal jumping and were sent e-challans.

“In several cases, those receiving e-challans said the vehicle was driven by another person like friend or family members,” a senior traffic cop said.

Traffic cops said they have not come across any motorist driving a vehicle after the licence was suspended. According to them, those caught driving vehicles during licence suspension period will be sent to jail.

Joint transport commissioner T. Raghunath said traffic cops have sent a list of motorists whose driving licences should be suspended. “The traffic police sends us the list (of the names) monthly or once in two months. We issue a showcause notice to the motorist based on the address available with the Transport department. After giving them time to explain why their driving licence should not be suspended, the local Road Transport Officer takes a decision and suspends it,” he said, adding that this takes time.

Joint transport commissioner B. Venkateshwarlu said the implementation of negative (penalty) points system for violation of rules would take time as they were busy with reorganisation of districts.