"New bill to curb traffic violations": Delhi Gov. Will it Work?

How to effectively implement traffic laws?

There is no denying the fact that violation of traffic laws is rampant across India. Well, Delhi has its own share of problems too and Delhi Government looks determined to put things right this time. To achieve the same, the newly elected Delhi Gov. has come up with the plan of hiking penalty charges for breaking traffic laws. For instance, the new Bill proposes to hike the fine for jumping red lights or not wearing seatbelt from Rs 100 to Rs 500. It is also proposed that parking in no-parking zones would invite a fine of Rs 1,500 instead of Rs 100 at present and so forth.

So how much is this going to help?

To find out if this is an effective solution we first need to understand the problem in detail. The problem is not only a lenient system which doesnt adequately penalize the violators but also an ineffective law enforcement agency (traffic police). No matter what happens on road, an offender knows that he can easily bribe the traffic police personnel and get away. The problem is that by hiking the penalty we are giving even more reasons to the offender to bribe the policeman rather than paying up the fine. For a fine of Rs. 100 an offender used to pay Rs 10-20 to get off, for a fine of Rs 500 he will now perhaps offer Rs 50-60. Surely the offender would try even harder to evade the hiked penalty. Under such circumstances how can we ensure proper implementation of traffic laws? Surely an increased penalty would also mean an increased bribe and a bigger dent in offender’s pocket and thus a bigger deterrent. However, this is surely not enough. It would never be able to bring desired results.

What incentive can we give an offender so that he prefers to get punished rather than bribing? I don’t see any particular way of doing that until and unless penalties are made too lenient which is surely unacceptable. Thus offenders will always find a way to escape fine by bribing policemen till policemen are ready to accept the gift.

Well, then can we influence the policemen to reject the illicit offers? Of course one option is to use technology to better monitor whatever is happening on the road as well with the policemen. However technology is expensive and its implementation will surely take time. So let’s forget technology for now. Well, just like we have heavy penalties for traffic rule violators, similarly we can have even heavier penalties for policemen found guilty of taking bribe. Also make sure that penalties are not only monetary but also career threatening for greater impact. But who will catch the corrupt policemen? Non-Gov. agencies can keep a vigil but still not an easy solution to implement. Another option can be to incentivise giving a ticket, say through sharing a portion of revenue earned through penalty with the police personnel. But this method can’t be overstretched as it might lure policemen into penalizing innocents for their own benefit.

So we have tried heavily penalizing offenders for breaking traffic laws and also traffic policemen for accepting bribe. However, this still doesn’t seem to be enough. Can we also introduce a system which ensures more cases to be booked rather than let off through bribes? I believe there lies another option in numbers and statistics. How about finding out the average number of violations, in say Delhi, each day? Can we break down the result in the type of violation, area in which committed and time during the day when rules were broken? There are numerous NGOs, NPOs and even Bhagidari which can collect this impartial data specially related to seatbelt, jumping red lights, rash driving, parking in no parking zones, use of mobile phone while driving, et al. It is for everybody’s benefit to regularly monitor this data. To begin with, we can take an average number of violations of each type, committed on each day in each area. Then we can ask the law enforcement agency to at least ensure that we bring to books at least 60% of the violations happening each day in the respective areas. This figure can be increased gradually. This will not only give invaluable regular inputs about traffic law violations happening across the city but also ensure that majority of them are brought to books rather than ending up in bribes.

Of course even the combination of all three options pointed out above can’t ensure a perfect system but it can surely be a step towards an improved system with lesser loopholes.

To read more on this topic click here http://parkheavens.blogspot.com/2009/03/chalans-and-penalties-not-only-solution.html