Traffic rule violation and hefty fines
Center has declared Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019 using which different states are charging a hefty amount of fines from the citizen for violating traffic rules.
Death and Probability:
Death in the roads is about probability or chance. There are many ways to decrease the death rates in roads. It includes wearing helmets, following the signals, roads without potholes, wider roads.
To follow signals, one needs to know and learn different kinds of traffic signals, and if you are driving on roads, you need to know the driving.
For the purpose of evaluating driving skill and the knowledge about traffic signals, RTOs are providing the driving license.
All these processes are meant for decreasing the probability of dying on the roads.
But in reality, the probability is context-dependent.
Take of example, you are travelling a short distance, in narrow roads where traffic is usually high, you can't drive faster than a slow cycle. Whats probability of dying here?
The main cause of death by accident is speed. If the change in momentum occurs over a short time, the hitting force is large. But in this context, your speed is very less to cause a large hitting force. Will it be justified to wear a helmet here?
What I am trying to say is the same rules can't be applied in all context.
Take another context,
The next turn is at 1 km distance, but due to traffic, it will take an hour to reach next turn, but your home is at just 100 meters from the place you are present, you will take the wrong turn to go home or wait for an hour in traffic.
This is the situation I faced in Bhubaneswar, I was fined 500 rupees, as I had only 400, traffic police was happy to take it without giving any receipt.
This is how corruption takes place.
Some argue that "why not just follow the rules, and save your self from hefty fines".
To err is human, never seen a person who is not a traffic rule breaker, some people are just more unfortunate to fall at the same time when there is checking, and others who are lucky, they say to follow the rules. With bad roads, following the traffic rules by 100% is impossible.
Regarding high fines, there are many rules, that doesn't mean you can fine and punish anything you like for breaking the rule. It's abusing and exploiting people in the disguise of law. Take a metaphor, giving someone the death penalty for traffic law violation, and say its justified as per law.
Punishment should be given with good judgement and fairness.
Such a hefty fine is unrealistic to be paid by common citizens with such a low income. It is meant to create more panic than it solves the traffic rule violation problem.
Here is an example, how a court with an honest and empathetic judge decides what the fine should be, based upon the honesty of the person.
An idea:
This is how the traffic penalty system should be handled:
1) Make online apps to pay fine through instalment
2) Make realistic fines, that people can pay without getting bankrupt, and should be decided by a special court, by checking the context and honesty.
Minor rule-breaking shouldn't cause fine, only noting it down is ok. If it becomes regular, they can be fined.
The goal is to develop good habits, the dairy in the app can remind them of rule-breaking.
Apps can also fix timelines to get the job done, such as insurance, driving license, etc. If not done on time, then make a fine.
My experience for getting DL for two-wheeler
Even though many automation is done for getting DL, still it can be further streamlined to decrease the queue length.
1) No payment is possible online, so you have to go almost most twice for payment, once for Learning Licence (LL) and then for DL.
2) Two times photo and signature are taken, one for LL and then for DL. So you have to stand in a long queue for it. I don't get the logic why again digital photos and signature are taken for DL.
Both DL and LL tests are about testing your knowledge of traffic signals. But about 80% of signals are not used in roads when its needed. We have humps everywhere, but do we find a signal for humps?
Learning about these signals is useful if we have better roads, and traffic signals are actually used. For now, DL is only another identity proof, nothing much to do with driving.
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