Team Herald
PANJIM: Acting tough against violators of the Motor Vehicle Act, Directorate of Transport suspended 273 driving licences between October and December 2017.
Using mobile phones while driving, continues to be the highest recorded traffic violation. Of the 273 suspended licences, 133 (48 percent) were suspended for speaking on the mobile while driving or riding while 111 (40 percent) were suspended for driving under the influence of alcohol/drugs and 21 for jumping the red light.
Following a rise in deaths due to accidents, the Traffic Cell of Goa Police and Transport Department have strictly enforced the motor vehicle rules.
Speaking to Herald, Transport Director Nikhil Desai said, “We want to tell citizens they have to extremely responsible while driving. There are three tools by which the concept of road safety can be implemented, one is enforcement, second is education in which people are sensitised through posters and other programs while the third is curriculum.”
He added, “The transport app which was non-functional due to some server issue has been fixed and restarted and we have been constantly getting complaints through this app. There have been approximately about 1200 app downloads and we expect this number to rise to 10,000.”
Speaking on mobile phones while driving incurs a punishment of deferral of licence for three months, while had been decreed by the Supreme Court. Strict implementation of this began in Goa only by October 2016.
Since then, officials from the Regional Transport Offices (RTO) began cracking the whip on those engaging in mobile phone conversations while driving. Several violators were pulled up and fined, and in many cases, licences suspended.
As per the Supreme Court monitoring committee, Transport Directorate has started suspending licences on references made by Police Department as per statistics from October 1, 2016 till March 31, 2017 approximately 5,066 licences had been suspended.
