Hello and welcome to Film Shots Daily. In today's episode, we talk about traffic violations and the impact of the recently amended Motor Vehicles Act to wear a helmet or not.

When you set out on your scooter and head to the nearest kirana store, you are faced with the momentous decision to wear a helmet or not.

And your answer here depends on how you calculate the expected payout if and when you get called. Think of expected payout as the price should be forced to pay in case you find this is obtained by multiplying the profitability of punishment, that is the likelihood of attracting a fine and the cost of punishment, which in the old days was a fine, amounting to a measly hundred rupees for a helmet violation.

At this point, you're probably thinking who are not? Does this calculation anywhere on your right? Most people don't. At least they don't pull out a notepad or do the math. However, they are still making an intuitive assessment of sorts, maybe even at a deep subconscious level. And if you're simply riding through the street, facing your apartment block, you probably won't wear that helmet. After all, the expected penalty in this case drops to almost zero.

Who is going to catch you there? Right, however. And the off chance that you are forced to take a ride on outside the four way intersection, your expected payout changes. What if there's a traffic cop lurking in the area? What if he spots you? That is a dilemma. But even if you beg that there was a 90 percent chance of finding a cop and being fined, then you're still thinking you only have to pay 90 rupees. That is point nine and two hundred.

And if you could bargain with a cop, maybe you could get away with 50 rupees even. Who knows? Is that really something that would scare the crap out of you? Probably not. So you go without the helmet anyway. Bottom line, the two fundamental things driving a decision here is enforcement, which is primarily dependent on the number of traffic cops patrolling the streets and the total quantum of the fine. And since the government couldn't increase the number of traffic cops patrolling the streets overnight, the only way they could force you to put on that had made was by making traffic violations very, very expensive.

So in September 2019, the central government decided to amend the Motor Vehicles Act and hike penalties in a bid to increase compliance and reduce traffic violations.

In fact, we made the same exact case a year ago when the new rules were notified. Unfortunately, the results of the new amendments have been a little more, let's say, mixed. Part of the reason could be attributed to implementation problems. As an article, Enlightment Notes got gaps in implementation varied by state. Some of the most accident prone cities and states reported a more sustained decline September onwards, but others did not due to public anger and political concerns.

Some states, even those ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, decided to delay or reduce the fines. For instance, Gujarat's penalties are lower than the centrally mandated ones, and Odisha implemented them only in March 2020, uncowed. In fact, 37 percent of India's cities are road accidents rise in the last four months of 2019 after the rules were notified, but that is an even more pressing problem here. At the time, the hope was that enforcement wouldn't be a problem even if people resorted to bribing traffic officials.

After all, traffic cops change that expectations when they know you'll be forced to shell out thousands of rupees even if you are officially fined with a Chalon. So even if you were to offer a bribe, the expectation was that they would seek a higher sum, putting an added financial burden on you. So there was good reason to believe you'd be compliant with traffic rules.

In most cases, however, a good portion of the accidents happen on state and national highways, and traffic cops usually don't patrol these areas to see if anyone speeding. Now, although the new regulations mandate states to enforce electronic compliance by way of cameras, speed guns or other technologies, they haven't really taken off in a massive way. And people continue to flout rules. It's such a shame, really, because nearly 17 people die in road accidents every odd.

And while you could attribute some of these deaths to the poor state of road infrastructure in this country, some of it seems to be our own doing so terrible. Thank you for listening to today's episode. Venkat Stehly is available on a bunch of streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple podcast and Google podcasts. So make sure you follow us on your favorite podcast streaming platform. Until next time.