rhitwick
Democracy is a myth
First, accept that traffic rules are really hard to implement until they come with strict fine and/or punishment. We've a very good guide on what are to be called offenses and how much penalty should be taken from the offenders in India. In spite of then traffic rule breaking is a regular incident.
I tried to understand what could be that reason?
Possible reasons-->
-->But, breaking of traffic rule is a reality even in cities where ample amount of cops are deployed! So? is it low fines then?
-->But, couple of years ago Indian govt. increased fine amount and punishment did it make any effect? I at least do not see.
-->At most cases I've seen cops taking a laid back approach to fine the offenders. Even if someone is caught they are not processed by law in exchange of bribe. Now many of you might live in a utopia where "police do no take bribe" is a reality but in real life its a open secret that "police take bribe"
Is it the bribe then which makes even the tightest law seem like non-existent? Could be one of many reasons but in my solution described next I'll consider this being the sole reason of such lackluster traffic policing.
Well, if I'm an offender and I know the fine is 300/- and if I pay only 50/- to 100/- to the traffic police who caught me I'll be let off without any issue, why would I pay the fine?
Simple math right? Why pay 300/- for the service that you can get at a six times low price?!
My solution has two parts: one with bribe and another with legal processing with fine
Handling bribe:-
I propose to legalize taking bribe and rename it to service fee! Shocking right?! Cool down there let me explain it.
So why police take bribe? Some might be greedy and some might be in real need of that money. Even if we ignore all that the continuous service they give us I think they should be given much higher salary so the bribe taking is justified.
I propose to make taking bribe legal but the bribe has to be at least 100/-.
Any offender who does not want to get processed by law for breaking traffic rules needs to pay this service tax the traffic officer who caught him/her. This money goes directly to the officer or his team.
How this would benefit anyway? That is explained in next part.
Fines:-
I propose to lower the existing fine structure to 8 to 10 times! Whoa...don't laugh just read on and call me a crazy later.
So now a person bribes police as he/she wants to go scot-free either to not get haggled by law or due to the steep fine. If the fine is really low what would happen?
Would the crime rate go up?
Yes, definitely but the offender here would be caught in a dilemma whether pay a 10/- or 20/- fine and get processed by law or pay 100/- or 200/- fine?!
So what if offenders agree to get processed by law with minimal fine and continues to break rules?
I've tried to answer that question in next section.
Clause 1: the traffic police would be entitled to take a call if he should take a service fee or process the offender by law. If the Offender wants to pay a hefty service fee rather get processed by law and the traffic officer wants to process him, the will of traffic officer would be taken into account and the offender would be processed by law.
Taking service fee is to be made optional for traffic police rather mandatory
Punishment:-
Now, when we follow my suggestion of modifying fine structure and the offender agrees to get processed by law and pay a 10/- fine I propose to implement a "rap sheet" against his driving license and his "Aadhar Card"!
How to handle the rap sheet?
For each offense and its severity points to be added to the rap sheet.
When the points get accumulated to certain threshold value he should be punished accordingly.
Eg. when the points reach 50 for any offender his/her driving license should be impounded for 3 days; similarly for 65 points 1 week and 1 day of jail term. This jail term here is additional to the verdict that Court gives!
Suppose for a serious traffic offense the offender is fined 20/- and a jail term of 3 months. In that case his rap sheet is consulted and additional jail days are calculated and added to the verdict. If his rap sheet says that according to his offense points he should be jailed for 2 days then the updated verdict is a fine of 20/- and a jail term of 3 months and 2 days!
Example:-
A person is caught by traffic police for breaking red light. The current fine in Delhi, B'lore, Chennai and Mum for this offense is 100/- (ref. *trafficpolicemumbai.org/offences list.pdf , Bangalore City Traffic Police , Chennai Traffic Police :: Court Fine , Delhi Traffic Police, New Delhi (India) - Offences and Penalties of Delhi Traffic Police)
With my solution the revised fine would be 10/- and 3 points in his rap sheet and the service fee would be 150/- minimum.
Now he'd have two options infront of him. Either pay a service fee of 150/- or pay a nominal fine and get some points added to his rap sheet.
Any one one time offender would not mind paying the fine or the service fee. I would even say that he would chose to pay the fine and get processed by law.
If one is a repeat offender then its really costly to pay high service fee every time and if chose to get processed by law he'd have the fear of his DL getting suspended and a resultant jail term.
To avoid both the scenarios, both the common public and traffic police would be vigilant about their act on road. This in near future would make our roads more safe and easy to drive.
Please comment on my idea. How insane this is or how it could be a solution.
I tried to understand what could be that reason?
Possible reasons-->
- Less traffic cops
- Low fines
- Rules are not implemented with strict measures
- Others
-->But, breaking of traffic rule is a reality even in cities where ample amount of cops are deployed! So? is it low fines then?
-->But, couple of years ago Indian govt. increased fine amount and punishment did it make any effect? I at least do not see.
-->At most cases I've seen cops taking a laid back approach to fine the offenders. Even if someone is caught they are not processed by law in exchange of bribe. Now many of you might live in a utopia where "police do no take bribe" is a reality but in real life its a open secret that "police take bribe"
Is it the bribe then which makes even the tightest law seem like non-existent? Could be one of many reasons but in my solution described next I'll consider this being the sole reason of such lackluster traffic policing.
Well, if I'm an offender and I know the fine is 300/- and if I pay only 50/- to 100/- to the traffic police who caught me I'll be let off without any issue, why would I pay the fine?
Simple math right? Why pay 300/- for the service that you can get at a six times low price?!
My solution has two parts: one with bribe and another with legal processing with fine
Handling bribe:-
I propose to legalize taking bribe and rename it to service fee! Shocking right?! Cool down there let me explain it.
So why police take bribe? Some might be greedy and some might be in real need of that money. Even if we ignore all that the continuous service they give us I think they should be given much higher salary so the bribe taking is justified.
I propose to make taking bribe legal but the bribe has to be at least 100/-.
Any offender who does not want to get processed by law for breaking traffic rules needs to pay this service tax the traffic officer who caught him/her. This money goes directly to the officer or his team.
How this would benefit anyway? That is explained in next part.
Fines:-
I propose to lower the existing fine structure to 8 to 10 times! Whoa...don't laugh just read on and call me a crazy later.
So now a person bribes police as he/she wants to go scot-free either to not get haggled by law or due to the steep fine. If the fine is really low what would happen?
Would the crime rate go up?
Yes, definitely but the offender here would be caught in a dilemma whether pay a 10/- or 20/- fine and get processed by law or pay 100/- or 200/- fine?!
So what if offenders agree to get processed by law with minimal fine and continues to break rules?
I've tried to answer that question in next section.
Clause 1: the traffic police would be entitled to take a call if he should take a service fee or process the offender by law. If the Offender wants to pay a hefty service fee rather get processed by law and the traffic officer wants to process him, the will of traffic officer would be taken into account and the offender would be processed by law.
Taking service fee is to be made optional for traffic police rather mandatory
Punishment:-
Now, when we follow my suggestion of modifying fine structure and the offender agrees to get processed by law and pay a 10/- fine I propose to implement a "rap sheet" against his driving license and his "Aadhar Card"!
How to handle the rap sheet?
For each offense and its severity points to be added to the rap sheet.
When the points get accumulated to certain threshold value he should be punished accordingly.
Eg. when the points reach 50 for any offender his/her driving license should be impounded for 3 days; similarly for 65 points 1 week and 1 day of jail term. This jail term here is additional to the verdict that Court gives!
Suppose for a serious traffic offense the offender is fined 20/- and a jail term of 3 months. In that case his rap sheet is consulted and additional jail days are calculated and added to the verdict. If his rap sheet says that according to his offense points he should be jailed for 2 days then the updated verdict is a fine of 20/- and a jail term of 3 months and 2 days!
Example:-
A person is caught by traffic police for breaking red light. The current fine in Delhi, B'lore, Chennai and Mum for this offense is 100/- (ref. *trafficpolicemumbai.org/offences list.pdf , Bangalore City Traffic Police , Chennai Traffic Police :: Court Fine , Delhi Traffic Police, New Delhi (India) - Offences and Penalties of Delhi Traffic Police)
With my solution the revised fine would be 10/- and 3 points in his rap sheet and the service fee would be 150/- minimum.
Now he'd have two options infront of him. Either pay a service fee of 150/- or pay a nominal fine and get some points added to his rap sheet.
Any one one time offender would not mind paying the fine or the service fee. I would even say that he would chose to pay the fine and get processed by law.
If one is a repeat offender then its really costly to pay high service fee every time and if chose to get processed by law he'd have the fear of his DL getting suspended and a resultant jail term.
To avoid both the scenarios, both the common public and traffic police would be vigilant about their act on road. This in near future would make our roads more safe and easy to drive.
- Loophole 1: People with insane amount of money would just pay the service fee and get free of any offense.
- Loophole 2: So if an accident happens and someone dies. The offender is a rich here. In those cases he would just go free by paying a steep service fee.
- loophole 3: But, wouldn't he just pay the service and the cop never charges him.
Please comment on my idea. How insane this is or how it could be a solution.
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