Strict police check on tinted car glass bearing fruit

suchithkc

New Delhi, Apr 12 : Remove tinted glass and fancy number plates from your vehicle within 72 hours or go to court to get licence back -- a strict direction from Delhi Police appears to be paying dividends in checking the menace.
From last month, police have been asking the erring vehicle owners to remove tinted glass within 72 hours and produce the vehicle at police station to get back their vehicle documents or driving licences back.
"Action in three months including giving of directions of removal of defect and production of vehicle has resulted in better compliance with rules," Satyendra Garg, Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic), said.
Till March 31 this year, Delhi Police has prosecuted 29,579 people for having tinted glass on their vehicles as against 1,927 prosecutions last year same time.
According to rules, there should be at least 70 per cent transparency in the front and rear windows and 50 per cent transparency on the side windows.
"When we started the drive against tinted glasses after some vehicles were found involved in crime against women, we discovered that people preferred to pay fines when caught but did not remove films. There were many cases of multiple challans of same vehicles," he said.
The rule book came to police''s rescue where they discovered that apart from prosecution, they can give directions to remove defect, impound a document to ensure compliance in three days failing which challan and the document could be sent to the court.
This, he said, had the desired result instantly and many people started removing films from their vehicles on their own on the spot rather than taking directions.
Large queues were witnessed near some workshops where people lined for removing the offending tint.
From March 3, when police started giving directions as many as 3,582 vehicle owners representative removed films instantly when caught.
Till March 31, a total of 6,450 directions were issued for removal of defect like tinted glass, defective number plates and pressure horns and in 5,863 cases the compliance was made within 72 hours of the issuance of directions.
Garg said 435 cases still had time for 72 hours and only 212 who did not comply with the directions their cases along with seized documents were sent to concerned court.
"This has reduced the ordinary sight of vehicles having jet black tinted glasses where nothing could be seen inside. The city has behaved well and with a bit of firmness improvement has come in compliance with traffic rules," he said.