Around a week ago, the Ahmedabad Police Commissioner AK Singh issued a notification on curbing the speed limit of vehicles in the city. The notification was issued after the city witnessed a rise in the number of fatal accidents in 2019. A week after the drive was launched, the traffic officials had 153 offenders in their nets and have collected a total of Rs 70,200 fine from them.

To reign in reckless drivers in the city, the Ahmedabad traffic police started a drive from August 13 in the outskirts of the city during peak hours (between 8 am to 12 pm and 8 pm to 12 am). Five teams of five officers from traffic police were deployed at Auganaj circle, Nirmal University road, Vishal circle, Odhav Ring Road, Khotarpur road, Narol circle, S.G highway, Ujjala circle, SP Ring Road, etc on different days.

As per statistics, only 625 cases of speeding were registered by the traffic police department this year (till 2019) and a total of Rs 2.7 lakh fine was collected from the offenders. In the last one week, the police have apprehended 25% of offenders nabbed in the entire year of 2019.

Speaking to DNA, DCP traffic Tejas Patel said, "Nowadays commuters are slowing down when they spot cops from a distance. Once they get out of our sight, they increase the speed. We want to put a stop to that too. People are slow down their vehicles only to avoid a challan. However, we want them to realise that the speed limit is for their safety. They should slow down for their own lives."

As per the official, most of the offenders were drivers of four and two-wheelers. Many of them did not have any idea that there is a speed limit and they can be fined for violating it.

In Cops’ Net