Driving licence of nearly 1,200 cancelled for various traffic violations in city

Transport minister M R Vijayabhaskar, while replying to query by a DMK member in the house on Saturday, said that the department had also suspended licences of 6,723 drivers who were involved in fatal accidents and 64 drivers had got their licences terminated following their involvement in multiple fatal accidents.

The government had earlier announced that drunken driving would be dealt with an iron hand and licences of the drunk drivers would be suspended, even when they are caught for the first time. Licences will then be terminated if the same driver is caught multiple times repeating the same offence. 

In Chennai city alone, every week police register more than 400 drunken driving cases. However, the number of licences suspended for the offence does not correspond with the number of cases registered for drunken driving. 

Apart from fine and getting back the vehicle documents from the court, a driver caught for drunken driving is also supposed to watch an awareness movie on social impacts of drunken driving. The driver would also have to attend awareness classes to understand the consequences of drunken driving. 

The licence suspension drive, which had been introduced several years ago, to contain drunken driving, had lost steam for the last several years. It again picked up momentum after the transport minister announced that the law would be implemented strictly, after a review meeting at Secretariat last month. 

The State Road Safety Council had decided to cancel the licences of drivers who are caught for violations like jumping signal, over speeding, speaking on the mobile while driving and drunk driving, based on a Supreme Court directive. A meeting of the council chaired by the Transport minister on June 21 had announced these decisions in Chennai.