Coimbatore: While the police department has begun to effectively use WhatsApp by announcing WhatsApp numbers to address grievances immediately, on the other hand, a bizarre WhatsApp group formed by Kovai youngsters has raised the eyebrows of many especially the traffic police department.
Coimbatore: While the police department has begun to effectively use WhatsApp by announcing WhatsApp numbers to address grievances immediately, on the other hand, a bizarre WhatsApp group formed by Kovai youngsters has raised the eyebrows of many especially the traffic police department.
The WhatsApp group which has been functioning over a year has been ideated and formed by few youngsters who claim that they were tired and felt useless to pay traffic challans.
Alerting the group members through voice messages is the modus operandi of the group which has over 200 members, predominantly all youngsters who indulge in traffic violations everyday.
"The moment I see traffic cops stopping motorists to check for license, drink and drive or helmet, I immediately stop by and put a voice message in the group to alert my fellow group members to avoid that particular road", says a youngster of the group who prefers not to be named.
When questioned why he joined the group, the youngster claims that despite knowing the benefits of wearing a helmet to hates to wear one and had been booked several times and paid fines. According to him, he feels the police department has been minting money from the poor people and office goers in the name of traffic violations.
The youngster also asserted that the group has helped him save thousands of rupees which otherwise would have gone in paying fines. He also added that many of the group members use this group to escape drink and drive cases.
Shocked and upset by the operation of such a WhatsApp group, a police officer from the city termed it very dangerous and disturbing. "The very idea of patrolling and stopping vehicles who violate traffic rules and regulations is to establish a systematic and safe way of travelling which will ensure the safety of every citizen who travel on the road. To the contrary, people often misunderstand that collecting fines has been the motive of the police department. Fines are just punishments to make people not repeat the mistake. The motive is to protect every life on the road."
He also added that this group formed by the youngsters is futile. The traffic violators will get caught in one way or another, as all major signals are equipped with cameras and some signals even have smart cameras which would scan the vehicle number and send a e-challan to the violator.
To escape from a vehicle check might sound smart to the youngsters but in reality they aren't fooling us they are fooling themselves, the police officer opined.