7 March, 2010 - Motorists will soon land up paying fines, 10 times higher than today, if they are caught violating traffic rules. This means that a motorist, who paid Nu 50 for parking in the wrong area, will now have to pay Nu 550.
The decision to revise penalties comes 13 years after it was first fixed in 1997, said road safety and transport authority (RSTA) officials. “There was a need to revise the penalties in order to control the number of traffic rule violations,” said an RSTA official. “Since the fines were too less, people didn’t mind committing repeated offences.”
“The penalties imposed are peanuts and people just ask and pay the money,” said RSTA director, Tashi Norbu.
RSTA calculates penalty in units, where one unit is equivalent to Nu 50. There are a total of 15 kinds of offences, from speeding, failing to give way, unlicensed driving to using an unregistered vehicle and overloading. The minimum penalty for violating a traffic rule is Nu 50 and it goes up to Nu 1,250 for unlicensed driving, drink driving and driving without an insurance certificate.
“The rate of offences increases with the increasing number of vehicles and there is a huge concern for the safety of road users,” said another RSTA official.
This was one of the decisions taken during the RSTA’s fourth annual conference in Phuentsholing. The initial decision to not allow taxis to have rooftop carriers for “safety reasons” was also revoked for “practical reasons.”
“Taxis are small and there’s no space for luggage, so we decided to let them have carriers,” said an RSTA official. “But there’ll be a restriction on the height of load.”
Problems faced due to loss of luggage from the luggage room in Thimphu, carrying drinking water in buses, privatisation of urban transport, reduction of life of Eicher buses to 5 years, and need for maintaining uniform number plate standards were some of the other issues discussed.
By Sonam Pelden
