Bangalore City traffic police
Hi,
Today I would like to write a review on the Bangalore city traffic police as I came across a request on the same on MS. Typically, its very unusual that one would request for a review on a dept. such as the Bangalore traffic police, but nonetheless, we are here to make sure that your most unusual review requests are taken care of!
Well to start off with, The Bangalore traffic police are pretty vigilant when it comes to making money for their own pockets!
If you are a 2 wheeler rider in the city of Bangalore, god help you, and if your vehicle is registered outside Bangalore, its even worse!
The cops are quick to pounce on a Non-KA regn. bike as my poor friend, John, would testify(He has a KL registered Bullet), their harassment is such that he has given up using his vehicle to commute to work and back and prefers to use the company provided tranport instead.
The cops have kept up with the times, gone are the day when a cop was happy with 10 or 20 bucks and in some cases even 2 bucks(Yeah! its true!)
Nowadays cops take a bribe of nothing less than 50 bucks, if you attempt to palm them anything less, the typical answer you would get is "We wont even get a proper coffee with this!", I wonder where they have their coffee, a Cafe coffee day Cappucino costs around 30 Bucks!
A typical commute to office from where I live- Begur to Whitefield, would see me stopping atleast 5 times at various checking points, so its a good idea to leave around 15 mins early if you want to avoid being late provided you have all documents in place, if you do not have all of them, I suggest you use public transport, which is available in abundance(New Volvos included) to prevent harassment from the cops.
If you still want to use your vehicle please make sure that you know a bit of the local language and have great negotiation skills as you will definitely need them if you run into them.
Watch out for interceptor vehicles as they measure the speed of your vehicle and they can catch you and fine you on the spot for over-speeding
A list of Documents you need to carry:
1) Driving License
2) RC book -(preferably original just in case the RTO catches you)
3) Insurance copy(Again preferably original)
4) Tax paid reciept(non KA regd. vehicles)
5) If you are an LL holder, please make sure you have the "L" symbol display on your vehicle if not that will be another issue they could pounce on!
Tips to deal with cops:
1) Never argue with a cop - This will turn them against you and can lead them to confisticate your vehicle, no amount of pleading with move them and you will have to go to the court and pay the fine.
2) When negotiating with a cop, never demean them, otherwise you might end up with the scenario as above
3)Try as much as you can, to speak in Kannada, if not try English, Hindi may not be very advisable as they might think your from the north and they have a general dislike toward north indians!
4) Plead your case with a cop, a little amount of lies will be fine!(yes, they sometimes do have a heart as well!)
5) Never try to outrun a cop when he is chasing you, paying him a small bribe is better than being beaten up in full public view if he catches you!
6) Do not admit to drinking and driving(Even if you have taken the legal limit of alcohol) coz they would again pounce on you and make you cough up a fine or bribe even without testing you based on your admission!, instead take a breathlyser test and the results should come out negative(Make sure that the breathlyser does not make a noise which indicates that you are below the legal limit). Unfortunately, if you are caught at night cops would make you cough up money if you only mention that you had a small drink!
I hope this little(?) review would help you understand the mentality of the cops in Bangalore city.
I might just add that this review has brought out a bit of my black side, in terms of tipping you on how to deal with cops, but my argument is, why should we pay them our hard earned money, our government eats up half of our money in tax as it is. I am in no way advocating that we should have a free for all out there on the roads, but the primary responsibility of these cops should be to control traffic instead of pouncing on unsuspecting people and doing them out of their money!If Bangalores traffic situation is anything to go by, then the underlying reason is just what I have portrayed in this review.
Cheers!