Motorcycle riders felt the police heat for bending traffic rules during a surprise drive conducted by special teams here on Tuesday.
The traffic police launched the drive against riders found violating traffic rules and seized over 40 motorcycles. As many as eight special traffic police teams, headed by Deputy Commissioner of Police B.S. Nyamagoudar, conducted surprise checks at various places in the morning hours.
Police Inspector M.R. Channannavar, traffic police sub-inspector B.H. Talawar, Assistant Sub-Inspectors V.H. Mural, B.F. Madiwalar, H.R. Jagapur, D.V. Galaraddi, C.R. Ballari, Somu Lamani, Ravi Patil, Parashu Talawar, Basavaraj Chavan, Nagaraj Pattepur, participated in the drive.
The police said that surprise checks were held at Dasanakoppa Circle, Karnatak College Circle, Saptapur Bhavi Circle, Srinagar Circle, Jayanagar Circle, Swami Vivekananda Circle and others places that usually see high vehicular movement. The police targeted those who were found violating traffic rules, including reckless driving, using high decibel horns, wheeling, pollution not under check, altering silencers and riding without driving licence.
Those who produced proper documents of their vehicles were allowed to go after paying spot penalty.
However, the police seized vehicles of those who failed to produce proper documents. Such owners were also issued notices. Nearly 60 % of the offenders were students. Instead of collecting penalty, the police were focussed on booking cases, they said.
The special drive against motorcycle riders was conducted following a large number of complaints from citizens. It was noticed that some youth and students indulged in reckless riding and violated traffic rules causing trouble for the public, especially women, children and senior citizens. Such special drives would be conducted in the days to come too, they added.
Mr. Nyamagoudar and Mr. Channannavar held discussions with Hubballi-Dharwad Municipal Corporation zonal officer Vijayendra regarding providing parking lots in the city, creating road humps, marking traffic signals at specified places and other issues related to streamlining vehicular movement in the city limits.
It was also decided to start the process related to these issues without further delay, they said.
