Police crack down on stunt bikers and racers, book 120 offenders in one night

Police crack down on stunt bikers and racers, book 120 offenders in one night

    With the menace of bikers racing and performing stunts increasing in Mumbai, particularly in the western suburbs, the authorities have begun cracking down. In a special drive on Saturday night, the Mumbai t r a f f i c po l i c e booked 105 motorists for dangerous driving and 15 for rash driving, which includes performing stunts.
    Between 11pm on Saturday and 5am on Sunday, the traffic police conducted a major crackdown across the city, booking 1,421 offenders for various traffic violations. Carrying forward the drive later on Sunday, they registered 5,008 cases—118 for drunk driving—and netted Rs 3.6 lakh in fines. A similar weekend campaign was conducted on August 3 and 4, keeping in mind the ongoing festivals.
    “Involvement of twowheeler riders is often found in cases of bag-snatching, chain-snatching and cellphone theft on the streets. We noticed that such cases usually peak at night when the streets are dark. As a result, we decided to step up our drives at night,” said DCP Pratap Dighavkar.
    The traffic police have started impounding twowheelers in instances where the rider is unable to produce sufficient documentation.
    On studying patterns of traffic violations, the authorities noticed that speeding occurs more after midnight when traffic is minimal. Also, they realized, offenders were avoiding police nakabandis by racing after these concluded. To catch them by surprise, the police are now organizing random drives a little before daybreak as well; further, nakabandi locations are being changed periodically.
    “Some roads have become favourite destinations of racers. These have fewer signals and multiple lanes for a few kilometres,” said an officer. Participants have been known to bet up to Rs 1 lakh on races at Bandra Reclamation.
    “We managed to control organized bike racing wherever bets were placed. But smaller groups are still active and we often conduct drives to nab them,” said additional police commissioner (west region) Vishwas Nangre-Patil.
    Between January and July this year, the police booked 115 bikers and car drivers for racing in the western suburbs. “We used to earlier invoke the Motor Vehicles Act, but offenders got off easily after paying a fine. We have now started applying the stricter IPC section 279 (rash driving), which attracts a jail term of up to six months or a Rs 1,000 fine or both,” said an officer.