# Idea to revamp Traffice fine structure in India



## rhitwick (Aug 1, 2013)

First, accept that traffic rules are really hard to implement until they come with strict fine and/or punishment. We've a very good guide on what are to be called offenses and how much penalty should be taken from the offenders in India. In spite of then traffic rule breaking is a regular incident.

I tried to understand what could be that reason?
Possible reasons-->

Less traffic cops
Low fines
Rules are not implemented with strict measures
Others

-->But, breaking of traffic rule is a reality even in cities where ample amount of cops are deployed! So? is it low fines then?
-->But, couple of years ago Indian govt. increased fine amount and punishment did it make any effect? I at least do not see.
-->At most cases I've seen cops taking a laid back approach to fine the offenders. Even if someone is caught they are not processed by law in exchange of bribe. Now many of you might live in a utopia where "police do no take bribe" is a reality but in real life its a open secret that "police take bribe"
Is it the bribe then which makes even the tightest law seem like non-existent? Could be one of many reasons but in my solution described next I'll consider this being the sole reason of such lackluster traffic policing.

Well, if I'm an offender and I know the fine is 300/- and if I pay only 50/- to 100/- to the traffic police who caught me I'll be let off without any issue, why would I pay the fine? 
Simple math right? Why pay 300/- for the service that you can get at a six times low price?!

My solution has two parts: one with bribe and another with legal processing with fine

*Handling bribe:-*
I propose to legalize taking bribe and rename it to service fee! Shocking right?! Cool down there let me explain it.
So why police take bribe? Some might be greedy and some might be in real need of that money. Even if we ignore all that the continuous service they give us I think they should be given much higher salary so the bribe taking is justified.
I propose to make taking bribe legal but the bribe has to be at least 100/-. 

Any offender who does not want to get processed by law for breaking traffic rules needs to pay this service tax the traffic officer who caught him/her. This money goes directly to the officer or his team.

How this would benefit anyway? That is explained in next part.

*Fines:-*
I propose to lower the existing fine structure to 8 to 10 times! Whoa...don't laugh just read on and call me a crazy later.

So now a person bribes police as he/she wants to go scot-free either to not get haggled by law or due to the steep fine. If the fine is really low what would happen?

Would the crime rate go up? 
Yes, definitely but the offender here would be caught in a dilemma whether pay a 10/- or 20/- fine and get processed by law or pay 100/- or 200/- fine?!

So what if offenders agree to get processed by law with minimal fine and continues to break rules? 
I've tried to answer that question in next section.

*Clause 1:* the traffic police would be entitled to take a call if he should take a service fee or process the offender by law. If the Offender wants to pay a hefty service fee rather get processed by law and the traffic officer wants to process him, the will of traffic officer would be taken into account and the offender would be processed by law.
Taking service fee is to be made optional for traffic police rather mandatory

*Punishment:-*
Now, when we follow my suggestion of modifying fine structure and the offender agrees to get processed by law and pay a 10/- fine I propose to implement a "rap sheet" against his driving license and his "Aadhar Card"!
How to handle the rap sheet?
For each offense and its severity points to be added to the rap sheet. 
When the points get accumulated to certain threshold value he should be punished accordingly.

Eg. when the points reach 50 for any offender his/her driving license should be impounded for 3 days; similarly for 65 points 1 week and 1 day of jail term. This jail term here is additional to the verdict that Court gives!

Suppose for a serious traffic offense the offender is fined 20/- and a jail term of 3 months. In that case his rap sheet is consulted and additional jail days are calculated and added to the verdict. If his rap sheet says that according to his offense points he should be jailed for 2 days then the updated verdict is a fine of 20/- and a jail term of 3 months and 2 days!


*Example:-*
A person is caught by traffic police for breaking red light. The current fine in Delhi, B'lore, Chennai and Mum for this offense is 100/- (ref. *trafficpolicemumbai.org/offences list.pdf , Bangalore City Traffic Police , Chennai Traffic Police :: Court Fine , Delhi Traffic Police, New Delhi (India) - Offences and Penalties of Delhi Traffic Police)

With my solution the revised fine would be 10/- and 3 points in his rap sheet and the service fee would be 150/- minimum.

Now he'd have two options infront of him. Either pay a service fee of 150/- or pay a nominal fine and get some points added to his rap sheet.
Any one one time offender would not mind paying the fine or the service fee. I would even say that he would chose to pay the fine and get processed by law.

If one is a repeat offender then its really costly to pay high service fee every time and if chose to get processed by law he'd have the fear of his DL getting suspended and a resultant jail term.

To avoid both the scenarios, both the common public and traffic police would be vigilant about their act on road. This in near future would make our roads more safe and easy to drive.


Loophole 1: People with insane amount of money would just pay the service fee and get free of any offense.
-->% of such people is very less that the common offenders. Even if the rich agree to pay service fee at least its accounted that none are getting overlooked and caught by police. And neither party would deny about the offense.



Loophole 2: So if an accident happens and someone dies. The offender is a rich here. In those cases he would just go free by paying a steep service fee.
-->If such cases happen apart normal traffic violations murder and other charges can be brought to him. He can get his traffic record clean but can't escape the other charges.



loophole 3: But, wouldn't he just pay the service and the cop never charges him.
-->This risk is still there in present system. The cop chose to keep mum in exchange of a bribe. But We are depending on the good cops even with today's law and we would need to depend on the honest cops even if this solution is implemented.



Please comment on my idea. How insane this is or how it could be a solution.


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## gopi_vbboy (Aug 1, 2013)

But how to trust a corrupted system?

You can't change so easily...Most Indians are corrupt inherently...


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## RCuber (Aug 2, 2013)

tl;dr... Indians are A$$holes when it comes to traffic sense.. accept it. there are only a few (in scale) when compared to the population of India those who drive correctly.


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## rhitwick (Aug 2, 2013)

gopi_vbboy said:


> But how to trust a corrupted system?
> 
> You can't change so easily...Most Indians are corrupt inherently...


All countries suffer from this disease called "bribe". We live with it. Whereas fighting against it I'm just proposing to use it in betterment of our existing system.
In my short view of law and less understanding of how things work here I tried to propose a solution and tried to answer how it can be implemented.



RCuber said:


> tl;dr... Indians are A$$holes when it comes to traffic sense.. accept it. there are only a few (in scale) when compared to the population of India those who drive correctly.


Well, bro this one post would need your much longer attention. Thanx anyway.


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## RCuber (Aug 2, 2013)

rhitwick said:


> Well, bro this one post would need your much longer attention. Thanx anyway.


okay.. will go through it


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## Flash (Aug 2, 2013)

Actually, legalising bribe as a service fee is not different from bribe. If the service fee (legalised,right) is 100/-, the offender will still bribe the police for 50/- or less, to let him go.


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## rhitwick (Aug 2, 2013)

Gearbox said:


> Actually, legalising bribe as a service fee is not different from bribe. If the service fee (legalised,right) is 100/-, the offender will still bribe the police for 50/- or less, to let him go.



My idea deals with this state of mind only. Pay a bribe of 50/- or 80/- or pay a legal fine of 5/- or 10/-?
Even if bribery is increased at least police would be more vigilant to catch any offender however big or small the offense is. People would be more cautious while using roads as they would now know any deviation from a rule would make him pay.


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## Faun (Aug 2, 2013)

more room for exploitation.\z*cx
3ddnewaug.jpg


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## adi007 (Aug 3, 2013)

Certainly a good idea !!


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## rhitwick (Aug 4, 2013)

Faun said:


> more room for exploitation.\z*cx
> 3ddnewaug.jpg



IDK what you wanted to mean by those code languages but I would surely like to know your take on this.
Specially 'room for exploitation' part.


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## Kl@w-24 (Aug 6, 2013)

^ Room for exploitation - if a guy has a lot of red marks on his rap sheet and he gets caught again, which will result in a jail term, he could try to pay the traffic warden more than the "service fee" so his name doesn't appear anywhere.


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## rhitwick (Aug 6, 2013)

Kl@w-24 said:


> ^ Room for exploitation - if a guy has a lot of red marks on his rap sheet and he gets caught again, which will result in a jail term, he could try to pay the traffic warden more than the "service fee" so his name doesn't appear anywhere.



Well, I tried to answer that in my "Loophole 1" point.

I agree with you BUT, with my idea one thing would be sure no small error would be overlooked by cops. The greed would make them work harder. 
And, to address to the point you raised,
If someone is on the brink of such punishment how long would he/she keep on paying 'service fee'. This situation would arise only for regular offenders and someday he/she would consider this bribe paying as a harassment.
And, there is no limit on the 'service fee' asked by cops. If the offender is recognized as such an item from whom money can be extorted easily. The 'service fee' would just jump 2-3 folds for such cases only.

One thing I want you all to consider, how the cops could exploit this system?


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