Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar regional transport offices have suspended 215 driving licences for traffic violations, including dangerous driving, wrong-side driving, drunk driving, fatal accidents, helmet violations and overspeeding, according to a report by Sandesh. The suspensions followed action initiated by traffic police and hearings conducted by the respective RTO authorities.
The licences were suspended for periods ranging from three to six months. The enforcement covered cases handled through the Subhash Bridge, Vastral, Bavla and Gandhinagar RTOs. The report said 350 cases were considered for licence suspension, with 215 resulting in suspensions and 135 applications transferred to the relevant district or state transport authorities.
Traffic police issue offence memos after detecting violations such as overspeeding, drunk driving, dangerous driving, road accidents and wrong-side driving. The cases are then referred to the RTO for action against the licence holder. The RTO issues notices in stages and conducts a hearing before deciding whether to suspend the licence. If the driver does not attend the hearing, the authority can take an ex parte decision, the report said.
The largest category involved licences suspended in cases classified as fatal offences or accidents, with 159 suspensions reported. Dangerous driving accounted for 94 suspensions and overspeeding for four. The report also said 46 drivers were caught driving on the wrong side and 48 drunk-driving cases were recorded during the period cited. Some of these cases involved drivers from other districts or states.
Helmet violations also led to 28 licence suspensions. The report said a driver who violates the helmet rule three times while riding a two-wheeler can face suspension of the driving licence. Former officials cited in the report called for stronger action in drunk-driving cases and suggested that repeated helmet violations could attract suspensions lasting between one and three years, or even permanent cancellation. Those suggestions are not part of the current suspension orders described in the report.
Among the four offices, the Subhash Bridge RTO recorded 69 suspensions out of 123 cases. Vastral recorded 47 suspensions out of 66 cases, Bavla recorded 43 out of 43, and Gandhinagar recorded 56 out of 118 cases. The report also said that 54 cases from Subhash Bridge, 19 from Vastral and 62 from Gandhinagar were transferred to other district or state RTOs for further action.
The transfer mechanism is used when a driver is licensed in another jurisdiction or when an offence is recorded outside the licence holder’s home RTO. The relevant authority then receives the case and licence details to carry out the suspension process. The enforcement action places the RTO hearing system at the centre of road-safety enforcement, rather than treating traffic violations only as penalty or challan matters.
The report refers to both March-to-August and May-to-August periods while describing the data, and does not provide a separate official notification or detailed offence-wise case list. The immediate next step in each case is completion of the notice and hearing process, followed by the applicable suspension decision by the concerned RTO.
