ISLAMABAD, Dec 4: The capital traffic police are going to introduce a point system from January 1 under which driving licence of a violator will be suspended or cancelled upon reaching 20 points.

Speaking at a press conference here on Thursday, Senior Superintendent of Police (Traffic) Mohammad Zubair Hashmi said the Islamabad Traffic Police (ITP) would immediately cancel the licence of a driver who was found guilty of causing a fatal accident.

“Islamabad will become the first district among 110 licence issuing districts in the country to enforce such a system as per the 11th schedule of the Motor Vehicle Ordinance 1965,” SSP Hashmi said.

The schedule provides for a provision of point system, authorising the traffic police to suspend the licences after the violators crossed the limit of 20 points.

The record of traffic violations would be maintained by the ITP and the information would also be stored on the magnetic strip on licences.

The ITP chief said once a licence was suspended, the possessor would not be able to bring a vehicle on the road for one year. If the driver was found involved again in violation of traffic rules after one year, he would be barred from driving forever, he added.

In case of ‘manual licences’, the details of traffic violations would be mentioned on the booklet.

According to the ITP chief, if a motorist possessing computerised licence issued in any other district violated the traffic rules in the capital, the concerned authority would be asked to maintain the record of the violations.

SSP Hashmi said since January 1, 2008, the ITP took action against 487,273 vehicles, imposing fines amounting to Rs122,651,000. Those issued tickets included 443 dignitaries. He said the accident ratio decreased by 41 per cent during the period, he added. The ITP Help Unit assisted 7,795 road users in the last 11 months.

The SSP said the traffic police were ready to cooperate with the citizens in rooting out social evils through community participation.

He said the ITP was the only governmental institution which succeeded to get health insurance cover for its personnel with the help of Askari Insurance Limited.

He added that till date 341 ITP personnel had availed health insurance facility and an amount of Rs2,300,625 was incurred on their medical treatment. The beneficiaries included the wife of an ITP official who was suffering from throat cancer.