2.55L motorists penalised for violating norms on Expressway

The State Highway Traffic penalised as many as 2,55,920 motorists for different violations on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway in Raigad district (between Kalamboli and Khalapur) in 2021. They collected ₹21.03Cr fine from the violators in the entire year, a senior officer said.

According to the police, a total of 1,72,605 motorists were penalised for over-speeding alone while 83,315 others were penalised for violating the other norms such as lane-cutting, not wearing seat-belts, talking on mobile phones while driving among others.

Subhash Pujari, assistant inspector from the State Highway Traffic said, “Our officials were deployed on both Mumbai-bound and Pune-bound carriageways of the Expressway from time to time and they checked if any motorist had flouted the norms. Whenever they spotted someone over-speeding, cutting the lanes, or talking on phones, they stopped him or her and penalised them on the spot.”

Lane-cutting has been identified as one of the main causes of accidents on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway.

“The Expressway has three lanes on each side of the divider. The first lane (the one adjacent to the divider) is for overtaking. The second lane is for light vehicles and the third lane is for buses and other heavy vehicles. However, most of the motorists do not follow the rules. They randomly enter the unauthorised lanes and end up hitting vehicles moving ahead of them,” Pujari said.

“Our main objective behind conducting such drives was to bring discipline to the movement of the vehicles on the road. Most of the accidents on this road occur because of human errors and overtaking is one of them,” he added.

“The Expressway has dividers, guide boards for motorists and there is no mistake in its construction. Analysing some of the recent accidents, we have understood that speeding and overtaking are the reasons behind a majority of the accidents. Therefore, it is necessary to take such requisite measures to curb the menace,” another police officer said.