Only 20 prosecutions for not giving right of way in Delhi

Delhi Police has been able to prosecute only 20 persons for not giving right of way to emergency vehicles so far this year despite claiming to go strict against drivers not making way for ambulances and other essential vehicles.
All these prosecutions have taken place during the Green Corridor operations arranged for transferring live human organs, mostly between airport and hospitals in which the police installed cameras on the dash boards of the ambulances for assessment of the operation.
During these operations, a few violators ended up getting prosecuted after their registration numbers got captured in the assessment footage, said a senior police official.

"It is an offence to not give way to emergency vehicles. For prosecuting such errant drivers, there have to be cameras installed at the dashboards of the emergency vehicles, so that the registration numbers of violators gets captured, which can later be reported to the police," said Muktesh Chander, Special Commissioner of Police (Traffic).
Chander said, "It is also not an expensive affair as such cameras cost anything between Rs 5,000 and 10,000, and handling and monitoring of the recordings do not require too much of expertise."
Emergency vehicles include ambulances, fire tenders and PCR vans "attending to emergency calls".

It means, an ambulance will be considered an emergency vehicle only when it is rushing a patient or an organ to a hospital, or when it is going to pick up a patient needing immediate medical attention, not otherwise. The same applies for fire tenders and PCR vans, said a senior police official.

The senior official claimed that Delhi Traffic Police has sent several letters to private and government hospitals and Delhi Fire Services since September, 2014. The latest of them was sent on September 16.
"However, the response have so far lacked enthusiasm and hardly five private hospitals have till now bothered to inform us that they have installed cameras, but they too have reported no complaints regarding such violations yet," the senior official added.

Director of Delhi Fire Services, A K Sharma, said the fire department has no objection to the idea of installing cameras in fire tenders. "But there should be a specified protocol - encompassing the preservation of the recordings and monitoring of the process, especially when the fire department suffers a staff crisis," said Sharma.
Prosecuting for not giving way to an emergency vehicle is not new as far as the Motor Vehicles Act is concerned, and can attract penalty up to Rs 2,000.
The initiative was made of a special drive named "right of way" started by Delhi Police on January 1, 2015.