I was booked
under the charges of overspeeding a few days ago. My license was impounded and
I was asked to pay the fine. Being a sincere, docile and law abiding citizen, I
paid the fine. Now, the situation is this.
1. What are the
speed limits in Tamil Nadu? What is the speed urban and what’s rural? What’s on
bylanes and what’s on highways? Note that I was caught on a highway in a rural
area, not urban.
2. Since no one
under the rank of an ASI cannot collect fine, were we presented any credentials
before collecting the fine?
3. The challan
was issued in the name of someone else, driving a different vehicle and
possessing a different driving license number.
4. Assuming I am
overspeeding, where is the proof that I am overspeeding? Is there a snapshot
with the speed gun showing the number plate and vehicle speed? I was not shown
any. Is it not mandatory?
The charges were filed under Section 183(2) of Motor Vehicles Act, 1988
which clearly says – Whoever causes any person who is employed by him or is
subject to his control in driving to drive a motor vehicle in contravention of
the speed limits referred to in section 112 shall be punishable with fine which
may extend to three hundred rupees, or, if having been previously convicted of
an offence under this sub-section, is again convicted of an offence under this
sub-section, with fine which may extend to five hundred rupees.
The law clearly states someone forced/induced me to drive above the
prescribed speed limits. The challan is issued on the name of some other person
with a different vehicle number and driving license number. That clearly means
that a person driving a vehicle with such description induced me to drive above
the speed limits and was charged. Where is the proof that he existed? If he
existed, why was I forced to pay the fine? Even the argument he escaped and I
was asked to pay the fine does not hold good – a person absconded and not
caught questioning the competence of the police; if he is not caught and if
there is no signed affidavit from my side, how did they get that person’s
driving license number? This single act creates a web of suspicion and the
person under whose name the license is issued should be apprehended to prove
the veracity of the claims of the police.
5. Rather than
having an average speed across a distance, why is speed at a point considered?
Who is going to compensate me for the time which I lost because I had to waste
15 minutes on Dollar, Sholinganallur and Infosys signals? In that case, there
should be two speed limits actually – one regular and one during peak rush in
free stretches. It is ironic that I will be honked and will meet with an
accident if I drove at 40 because even at the maximum limit, I will be the
slowest on the road; slower than the next slowest by almost 20 kmph.
All of this
points to one single thing – callousness. Why shouldn’t the callous be
punished? Next is the speed limit. On a road journey of thirty km between
office and home in a direction with more than an hour wasted on traffic jams,
what justifies an atrociously ridiculous speed limit of 40 kmph, that too on a
highway? Is the duty of the police department only to fine wrong people under
wrong sections, that too without telling them what the charges are and not
providing a better and comfortable environment to drive?
Looking at
this in the prism of a recent article,
of the total 4224 vehicles on Mumbai-Pune expressway during the timeframe of 21
hours, 4185 broke the speed limit of 80 kmph - more than 99% broke the rule.
This clearly states the rule is faulty, not the 99.xx% people of people who
broke the rule. It’s high time we look at these things seriously and make rules
more rational. Else, people will be forced to revert back to lunas and tractors
for travel inside the city since those are the only once which don’t cross 40.
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