Motorists in the city now not only have to worry about drunken driving, wearing helmet and strapping of seat belts, but also have to drive within the prescribed speed limit as the traffic department has enforced the speed limit from Wednesday.
Exceeding the prescribed speed limit will be treated as an offence and the erring drivers will have to pay a fine on the spot, which starts from Rs. 400 and can go beyond Rs. 1,400.
The traffic department has acquired a state-of-the-art fully-loaded Mahindra XUV 500, which is fitted with a laser speed gun that is connected to a high-definition LCD monitor and a printer, a pan-tilt-zoom high definition camera that can rotate 360 degrees and carries a breath analyser.
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The vehicle is also fitted with GPS tracking system and has emergency first-aid and fire-fighting equipment.
“Apart from the laser speed gun that is loaded onto the vehicle, we have a portable gun that can be moved from one place to another and we expect to get one more such vehicle shortly,” said Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) K. Mahendra Patrudu.
The speed gun is equipped to track an incoming vehicle from a distance of about one km and would indicate at what speed the vehicle is moving.
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“Once tracked by the speed gun, a message will be sent to the team positioned at a further distance of about one km, and the erring driver will be caught, handed over a slip indicating the speed of the vehicle and fined,” said ACP (Traffic) Kinjarapu Prabhakar.
For exceeding the speed limit marginally, the driver will be fined a minimum of Rs. 400, but if the speed limit is exceeded glaringly, then the driver will be booked under dangerous driving and the fine might go up to Rs. 1,400. “If found drunk, then the fine will further go up,” said Mr. Prabhakar.
It is learnt the speed guns will first be focused on the 70 km NH stretch that passes through the city from Anandapuram to Anakapalle.
Apart from laser speed gun, we have a portable gun that can be moved from one place to another
—K. Mahendra Patrudu, ADCP (traffic)