The flying squads of the Regional Transport Office (RTO) have issued challans or traffic violation notices to nearly 1,300 vehicles for various offences, including over-speeding and lane cutting, on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway so far this month.
According to a report of PTI, The squads issued challans to 268 others for over-speeding, 448 vehicles for lane cutting, 218 vehicles for wrong-side driving and 365 others for driving without wearing seatbelts, said a release issued by the Maharashtra Motor Vehicles Department.
The action was taken as part of a special ongoing drive ''Suraksha''. The department launched this special road safety initiative from December 1 on both the highways - the Mumbai-Pune Expressway and the old highway connecting the two cities, with an aim to curb the rising road accidents and inculcate discipline among drivers.
The flying squads also issued challans for 57 cases of lane cutting, 162 cases of driving without seatbelt, 95 cases of over-speeding and 47 cases of wrong-side parking on the old Mumbai-Pune highway (NH-48).
The RTO has deputed six flying squads at different sections of the expressway and the highway as part of the drive, after a seven-day-long awareness campaign between December 1 and 7.
Deputy Transport Commissioner (Road Safety Cell) Bharat Kalaskar said the penalty for without seatbelt driving is Rs 500, for wrong-side parking is Rs 500, for lane cutting Rs 1,000 and the same for over-speeding is Rs 2,000 in case of cars and Rs 1,000 in case of two-wheelers.