Madurai City Police have made a slew of new initiatives to regulate traffic and bring about more discipline among road users at various traffic junctions.

In the initial phase, the police have focussed on strict implementation of stopping vehicles ahead of Stop Line and curbing defective number plates.

Instead of straight away going with penalising the violators, the police have taken to creating awareness on the importance of stopping the vehilces ahead of Stop Lines at traffic junctions.

“Sometimes, the vehicles are stopped over the Stop Line or cross it and stop on the zebra crossings putting pedestrians to inconvenience,” said Commissioner of Police, Kapil Kumar Saratkar.

The police have chosen 10 important traffic junctions in the city, like Kalavasal junction, Kattabomman statue junction and Kuruvikkaran Salai junction.

A team of policemen are posted at these junctions to tell the bikers and other drivers to stop their vehicles much ahead of the Stop Line.

Similarly, the police have displayed the right dimension and colour pattern of number plates and right font and font size of registration numbers to be used on vehicles.

“Any writings other registration number on the number plate will make them defective under Motor Vehicle Rules,” he added.

After giving a warning for the vehicle users on defective number plates, the police would give them grace period of two days for changing them or setting them right.

“If they fail to make the changes and inform the police about it within two days, the vehicle owner would be booked for violation on the third day,” the Commissioner of Police said.

Similarly, the police have also opened three fine amount realisation call centres in the city at Kattambomman Statue junction, Goripalayam junction and Kalavasal Junction.

The police have identified 4,500 vehicles that have got fines for five or more number of traffic violations imposed against them.

“The police personnel would call those vehicle owners and ask them to pay the fine amount immediately. Failure will lead to the police recommending for suspension of their driving license,” he added.