BANGALORE: The next time you take your vehicle out in the morning, don’t think you’ll get away with breaking traffic rules. On Friday between 6am and 8am, traffic police booked 8,800 motorists for violations ranging from riding without helmets to jumping signals. And the department was richer by Rs 9.52 lakh.

"In Bangalore, early morning motorists assume there won’t be traffic police around and break most rules like driving without helmets, driving the wrong way along a one-way road, not wearing seatbelts, driving in pedestrian areas, jumping signals, etc. Most of them know where traffic police are not there. Bangalore traffic police initiated a drive to check and punish those violators," traffic police said.

"We’ve been planning this for a few days. The numbers were a revelation. The number of accidents at night had come down drastically and most cases were being reported in the morning. We usually let them go because it’s peak hour and don’t want any disruption to vehicular movement. But the violations have become intolerable," MA Saleem, additional commissioner of police (traffic).

The rising cases of accidents show how reckless Bangaloreans have become. "This drive was an eye-opener for us. We came across incidents in which drivers were abetting others in breaking rules. At one signal, a man was patiently waiting for the signal to turn green, but people behind kept honking, suggesting he jump the signal," Saleem said.

The locality with most violations was Mico Layout with 345 cases and Sadashivanagar recorded the least with 87. The saving grace, as Saleem observed, was : "Thankfully, no drunk drivers were found in this drive."

Online praise

Soon after the drive, traffic police put the information on their page on a social networking site. Within two hours, there were more than 51 likes and 30 comments -- all of them praising the initiative. "Reckless driving by cab drivers while talking on the phone is a menace on ring road. Thank you," read a comment.

Offence -- No. of cases

Riding without helmets - 2333

Violating one-way rule -- 1248

Driving without seatbelt - 889

Wrongly parked - 858

Using mobile while riding - 298

Others - 3174