The newly introduced video evidence management system gives little scope for offenders to deny that they have not violated traffic rules on the city roads, since it will be uploaded on the police website.
If you get a notice slapping heavy fine for committing any traffic-related offence, check the traffic police website before pleading innocence. Your violation would have been videographed and posted on the Bangalore traffic police website.
The Bangalore City Traffic police’s initiative of posting video clippings of traffic violations was likely to silence the violators’ argument that they had not committed the offence, but was falsely implicated and levied a hefty fine.
Currently, about 50% of traffic offenders deny committing any offence. The new system, however, would provide video evidence of the violation, thus helping the police to counter the argument.
The traffic police, however, made it clear that the initiative was not to create fear about evidence but to make violators realise that they had committed an offence and they should not become habitual offenders. The video clipping of the offence would be uploaded on to the website, www.bangaloretrafficpolice.gov.in.
“This (initiative) is called video evidence management system, and it has been introduced two months ago. This is for traffic violations, which has been captured by the surveillance cameras and interceptors at various junctions across the city. Out of all the offences booked, 90% of them are booked on the field, and spot fines collected or notices issued. The rest are booked after they are spotted by the surveillance cameras and the Traffic Management Centre (TMC) recorded it,” additional commissioner of police (traffic) Praveen Sood said.
Explaining the facility, Sood said that TMC would save the video evidence whenever a case was booked. “The notices issued will be delivered at the offender’s residential address. But, the notice will mention the video evidence. When a person logs onto the traffic police website to pay the fine online, he or she can access the video or image. The offender’s vehicle details, along with the type of offence and notice number and the fine, will be mentioned on the website, with a link to the image or video,” he said.
The image and notice would be deleted once the payment was made online. “We don’t want people to get a notion that we are enforcing something here. It is just a method of indirectly reducing the number of repeated offenders,” the officer said.
Sood said that the notice would be deleted within 24 hours of remitting the fine amount. “The reconciliation at BangaloreOne centers is done at midnight. The misconception among people is that they still have an offence charged against them when they have already paid the fine. The online payment service has been offered since one year and at least 30% to 40% of the offenders make payments online,” he added.
However, online payment facility excluded certain offences.
"A motorist caught on the spot by a policeman cannot opt for online payment. But offences such as parking violation, signal jumping, rash and negligent riding, overspeeding, riding without helmet and using mobile phones that are recorded by surveillance cameras fall under the category of online payment,” he said.
Of the 5,19,419 cases booked for various traffic rule violations till February this year, 32,707 cases were booked through automation, 4,62,343 cases under Motor Vehicle Act, 1,558 cases under Karnataka Police Act and 22,811 towing cases. The traffic police invited the public to lodge complaints if the helpline numbers listed were non-functional.
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