17,531 school vehicles faced action for flouting traffic rules

Mumbai: In 2019, the Mumbai traffic police has taken action against 17,531 vehicles used to ferry school children for violating traffic rules prescribed under the Motor Vehicles Act. According to the police, action was mainly taken for not possessing licenses, parking the vehicles dangerously, obstructing smooth movement of traffic, using mobile phones while driving and jumping signals.

On Monday, Justice S.C. Dharmadhikari and Justice R.I. Chagala asked additional public prosecutor (APP) Manish Pabale not to file the report without the affidavit. According to the report, 2466 vehicles ferrying school children were charged under section 190(3) of the Motor Vehicles (MV) Act for obstructing free flow of traffic and Rs 493,200 was charged as penalty.

An amount of Rs 58,000 was collected from 116 school vehicles for driving without licenses in Mumbai. More interestingly, 374 school vehicles were caught for jumping signals and Rs 74,800 was collected from them.

According to the report, 544 vehicles were caught while driving in no-entry or one-way areas and 7311 vehicles were caught for being parked in no parking zones in Mumbai. Fines of Rs 1,462,200 and Rs 108,800 res-pectively, were recovered from them. Around 2,258 vehicles were charged for parking in dangerous conditions and 120 vehicle drivers were caught for using mobile phones while driving school vehicles. Acco-rding to the report, all 17,531 vehicles were char-ged for violating 119 different rules prescribed under the Motor Vehicles Act.

The state government also informed the court that a special road safety drive had been conducted from January 7 to 14 thro-ughout the state wherein action against 833 vehicles ferrying school children had been taken. Among them, 103 auto-rickshaws and 109 two-wheelers were charged for violating rules.

The court was hearing a PIL filed by the Parents-Teachers Association United Forum against the state government.