[GTO]

Thanks to Sumit Kumar for sending this information in. Heartfelt gratitude for sharing it with other enthusiasts via this Team-BHP page!

Watch the end of video 1 & then, video 2. It's pretty clear that he drove through green, but was still hassled by cops. I was similarly harassed by a cop @ Parel some years back. Nothing I said would make him budge.

I had a bad experience with the Delhi traffic police and I am sure others would have too.

I am reaching out to this forum as many people will relate to it and surely invest in a dashcam. Sending you 2 video links of my traffic stop in which they wrongly accused me of jumping a red light. The bad part is that they were in a group of 4-5 policemen and tried to gang up on me. I am not sure if they were under pressure for some targets / revenue generation.

https://youtu.be/kdmHxPaCsyQ

https://youtu.be/z3l5RBBP8rk

[vigsom]

^^ 00:58 on the first video - the Alto and the mobikes were waiting so the cops standing downstream assumed that the light was red.

Where do they ever listen to arguments put up by drivers? What they say and think is the law.

[Keeleri_Achu]

Well, he didn't jump the signal. I think it's the way he passed the Alto that made the cops pull him over. They probably assumed the signal was still red. To be fair to the cops, it is the first time I'm seeing a traffic signal in India with NONE of the vehicles moving even after close to 4 seconds of it turning green. Usually the honking starts within 0.004s.

I don't know about the situation up North, but if it were to happen in Kerala, I'm pretty sure he would've been able to leave after a bit of explaining. Provided he was careful with his words. I used to get pulled over a lot, especially near month ends, but so far had only been fined once for a genuine case of over-speeding. I've never faced harassment on any of those instances. Heck, the cops were even kind enough to reduce the fine from Rs. 400 to 100 when I started counting 20s and 10s in my wallet after the couple of 100s. And yes, they did give me a challan for 100 which reaffirmed me that it indeed was going back to the government and not his personal account.

On a side note, I would always wait for the vehicle in front of me to take off, even if I'm able to comfortably zoom past it at the signal. I've seen my share of crashes both in real life and YouTube which convinced me that you've to be extra careful at traffic signals.

[drmohitg]

So what was the eventual result of this? Was the OP fined or not? From my experiences with the cops over the years, they are quite receptive and usually back off if you are right and reasonable with them. Having a dash cam footage in such a case may be enough.

Off topic but instead of focussing on removing spare tyres in certain vehicles, the government should made it mandatory to install a functional Yellow/Orange light and a timer at every signal before a driver can be prosecuted.

[rahul_jo]

He's lucky that he at least has documentary evidence. The state of traffic laws in our country is very mood and need based. Often times I've seen police men riding around without helmets on, making illegal U turns and even going the wrong way for their own convenience.

My cousin went through a similar issue not so long back. They pulled him over because they assumed he jumped a red light along with 5 other cars that were behind him. His car was clearly past the light before it turned yellow. Yet, they still pulled him over along with the one's behind him.

They asked him for the RC and the driver's license. He handed over the license and then tried to explain what actually happened. Instead of listening to him, the cop turned a little aggressive, told him off and said now he can collect his license from the court.

He went through a whole another level of nightmare in attempts to get this license back from the court.

Moral of the story - You are better off just paying a small fine and getting rid of the headache. Instead of trying to prove your case.

Even if you're right, the whole situation depends on the mood/need of that specific cop on that specific day. We might have a justice system but it is so slow and so broken that even when you're right, you'll have to go through a nightmare to prove your case.

[Rajeevraj]

From the cops view point, it would definitely looked as if he ran the red light as he did not really slow down and none of the other vehicles had started moving at all. So it would have looked like he ran the light.

Stopping him I think was justified, but if he was harassed and his video evidence was ignored, then that was not acceptable.

I think all the stopped vehicles saw the cops there and that is why they were cautious on starting off.

[roamer012]

What i have observed is cops rarely are looking at the signal in question. They are rather looking at other signal which might be green while you are crossing yours. In some random scenarios your light sometimes turns green while the other light (being viewed by cop) is just switching from green-organge-red. Thus they tend to stop you without even checking if your signal had turned green or not.

[HTC]

Well i have faced it few times. Have endedup paying fine as i didnt had luxury of time to argue and prove that i hadn't jumped red light.
But once i held my fort and did the patience test on cops. On my way to office in bangalore, down from mayo hall there is a signal at garuda mall junction. The green signal light will change to blinking green and then suddenly change to red. When i was nearing zebra line it started blinking. What can i do? There were vehicles behind me. Sudden braking was definitely not an option . And i didnt want to stop on zebra crossing.so i continued taking left. There were cops waiting and stoppped me. I explained what happened and absence of yellow light. I had all the documents. They made me wait for 15-20 mins and let me go.

[Thermodynamics]

I have faced a similar situation in Bangalore. Cops didn't budge, the best I could manage was I used the green signal argument to politely bargain a significant cut on Dhaksihna.

[nagr22]

Happened to me once near Halasur traffic signal in Bangalore. I was on a two wheeler and a bus was ahead of me along with 4 other two wheelers beside me. We all passed the signal when it was yellow and within 100m of crossing the signal a cop jumped out of his hideout dangerously and tried to stop us two wheelers. My immediate instinct was to slam the brakes but the other two wheelers dodged him by making some snake like manoeuvres. I eventually stopped but my bike had already passed the cop by few meters before it came to a halt. I really don't know why he did such a stupid stunt by risking his life and also risking my life (what if there was a heavy vehicle behind who can't stop as fast as a two wheeler?)

My immediate feeling was anger but I didn't react. My wife was riding pillion and we were both wearing helmets. I had all documents including PUC and also recently changed my number from just a sticker to proper plates (it came with a sticker from showroom but during those days Bangalore cops were giving challans to literally all vehicles with a sticker plate and even I received one before I made the change).

I got down and handed him all the documents. He looked at them and also scanned both of us for helmets and took a nice look at the number plates. I guess he got frustrated and finally said that I jumped the signal and have to pay fine. I took off my helmet and politely told him in Kannada that I did not skip a red and it was yellow when I crossed and honestly I couldn't see the signal until I entered the junction because the tall bus was obstructing my view and since everybody was moving I didn't want to stop and risk being rear ended. Had I seen it from far that it was yellow I would have definitely slowed down. I also asked him even if I had jumped red, why couldnt he just take a picture and send me a challan instead of risking his life?

He calmed down and thanked me for stopping and said that I am one of the few who he has seen who respected him and stopped even after passing him and that many others dont. He also said he is letting me go as I am a local guy speaking Kannada (spoiler alert: I am neither local nor is Kannada my primary language). I wanted to make my point that I really did not jump a red signal but my wife brought sense into me and signalled us to leave.

My conclusion is, in such situations having a dashcam will help and if you dont have one then being polite and respectful is the best way to deal with them. Even they are humans working in a rough environment where no one really respects them and stops so they tend to sound a bit harsh but a majority of them calm down and behave sensibly if we are respectful and have all other documents clear.

[mac187]

Originally Posted by Keeleri_Achu

And yes, they did give me a challan for 100 which reaffirmed me that it indeed was going back to the government and not his personal account.

Unless the challan was issued electronically its likely that they gave you a fake receipt. They are known to print fake receipt books.

[jkrishnakj]

I had faced this once. That was 10 years back at Bangalore. I dont even know if i jumped the Red or now. I was merely following a big BMTC ahead of me. The Bus and I were amongst the last to cross over.
If i remember right, there were no means for me to check if the Bus continued to move ahead in the Green to Yellow transition or during the Yellow to Red Transition. I continued right behind him ( tailing the bus to be honest ), given there was lesser traffic those days and i didn't have the two wheelers who had inched forward from the other sides in anticipation of their signals turning green. Bus was not even stopped ( no surprise there ), and i found myself stopped amidst the presence of senior officers and traffic constables ( 4-5 of them ).

Had to pay the fine. I got a proper receipt. 300 INR if i remember. From then on, i don't think i tail big trucks or buses whilst approaching signals.

[GTO]

Sumit drops the following update:

Hi GTO,

First of all, thanks for sharing all this on the forum. I am sure that you receive a ton of emails and reviewing them takes a lot of effort.

Now to reply to members, no I wasn't fined. It's not because they were understanding, it was after I showed them the dashcam that both of the policemen looked at each other and then asked me to go without seeing the footage.

They were completely in the wrong and were well aware of that, because the other side's light had gone red well before I crossed the signal.

I am pretty sure that they were looking for some easy bucks here. I shared this thing with one of my friends right after the incident and funny thing is, he was fined for the same kind of incident but at some other place in Delhi. He didn't jump the signal, argued with them and in the end had to give away his license as he had no proof.

The problem lies with the system as there is no grievance addressing system. I reached out to the Delhi Traffic Police's Facebook page, got a phone number of the area traffic inspector, dialled and found it was busy. To his credit, he did call me back and told me that he will look into this. I doubt there will be any action?

Thanks,

Sumit

[typlo]

Faced this in Panchkula. No amount of pleading not guilty worked. They either told me that I would be written a court challan or have to cough up some chai paani expenses.

[jayguar]

There is assumption and then there is attempt to collect money no matter what. I had experienced a situation quite a few years ago in Chennai. There was not much traffic and the signal was very much green. I was stopped after passing the signal. Initially, I thought that I was stopped for something else. When I was told that I jumped a red signal, I started arguing. The next sentence by the cop took me by surprise. He told me, "You can go and check now, its red". By then the traffic light had turned red. I realized there was no point in arguing. I paid the fine and left.