Tata Nexon driver fined for ‘not wearing a helmet’

The Indian police force has been criticized for their bizarre acts in the past. While some of the acts by the cops can be deliberate actions while others can be pure mistake due to confusion. Here is a post by Gopa Kumar that shows a traffic fine slip issued by the traffic police.

Tata Nexon driver fined for not wearing a helmet?

The post by Gopa Kumar shows the traffic fine slip and his Nexon car in which he was travelling when the cops stopped him. It is not clear why he was stopped by the cops as it is not mentioned in the post. However, the cops handed him a fine of Rs 100 and handed him the challan receipt. The receipt mentions the reason for fine as “No Helmet”.

No, it is not a new rule that mandates all the motorists to wear a helmet. However, it can be a genuine mistake by the cops on the spot. The traffic cops can stop multiple vehicles at one spot and check for any irregularities. In this case, it is quite possible that the cop was issuing multiple fines to different motorists on the spot and by mistake, he wrote the reason as “No helmet”, which could have been an offence made by someone else stopped by the cops at the checkpoint.

The incident happened at the Shasthamkotta – Chavara road in Kerala and the cops handed a fine of Rs 100 to the driver of the vehicle. It is quite possible that the driver of the Nexon committed some other offence but due to confusion or by mistake, the cops mentioned the “No helmet” as an offence in the receipt.

This is not the first time that the cops have done something like. There are quite a few cases when the cops have issued a similar “no helmet” fine to the car drivers. Interestingly, bike riders have also received such wrong reasons in the past. A cop in Goa issued a receipt to a Royal Enfield rider for “not wearing a seatbelt” while riding his bike.

It is quite possible that the cops or the Nexon’s driver did not check the receipt after issuing it on the spot, which is why it could not be corrected. In India, the cops from various major cities have started using handheld fine issuing devices that can bring down the number of such errors. However, in India, most of the states do not keep track of such fines issued to the motorists, which is why wrong reasoning on the fine receipts do not matter much. In many developed countries, the fine issued to the motorists can cause a suspension of the driver’s license and it can affect the insurance premium of the vehicle too. In a few states, a driver’s license can be suspended after three strikes but most of the states do not have any such provision, which is why such wrong reasoning does not matter a lot.