New Delhi   

Red light jumpers, speed freaks beware!

Devesh K. Pandey

NEW DELHI: Those who look for opportunities to slip away after committing traffic rule violations in the Capital will now have a tough time saving their skin. To catch them red-handed, the Delhi traffic police have installed sophisticated cameras at some crossings and intersections that take high-resolution images of offending vehicles the moment they jump a light or over-speed.

While curbing traffic violations, these sophisticated cameras, which have been imported at a cost of Rs. 40 lakhs each, have also brought down the deployment needs of the traffic police, which is now able to utilise its men for other assignments such as checking violations by heavy vehicles.

The high-speed cameras have an inbuilt mechanism to register date, time and the nature of violation. They have the capacity to take several snaps within seconds. "The camera is attached to sensors embedded at the junction. Whenever a vehicle jumps the light or over-speeds, the sensor conveys the violation to the camera electronically, following which it takes snaps of the vehicle in question," said a police officer, adding that the camera covers about a 100-metre road-length.

Though the camera has an online version available in the market, in which the recorded violations are immediately passed on to the monitoring cell, the traffic police opted for cameras with hard-disc facilities as they were cheaper. "The hard-discs of the cameras are collected at regular intervals and taken to the main server where the prints of vehicles violating traffic rules are taken out, after which challans are sent to the violators," the police officer added.

Rules are already in place to ensure that every offender is sent a challan and should he not pay in time, or in court, the amount gets compounded and the records are sent to the Transport Department so that the violator is not able to transfer the vehicle till the dues are cleared.

At present, high-speed cameras have been installed at intersections near Raj Ghat, Lodhi Road, Teen Murti, Shankar Road, and three other places. It is learnt that the police plan to procure two more cameras in the near future.

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