Police in India using Facebook to catch rule-breaking drivers

New Delhi - Police in New Delhi have found another way to make technology work for them. They are using Facebook to help catch drivers who are breaking laws.

The city is famous for aggressive, law breaking drivers and crowded roads. Police set up a Facebook page about two months ago as a forum where people could express their views and make suggestions, but people soon began posting pictures of rule-breakers. They include photos of cars stopped in crosswalks, drivers using mobile phones, vehicles making illegal turns, and motorcyclists without helmets. Traffic police have used the photos to issue tickets. Some of the tickets were issued to police officers who were breaking rules. The International Herald Tribune reported that, as of Sunday, there were almost 3,000 photos, and dozens of videos, on the page. The city’s joint commissioner of traffic, Satyendra Garg, told the paper that the response has been positive. He admitted that photos could be manipulated to incriminate innocent people, but added that tickets can be contested. Gaurav Mishra, chief executive of 2020 Social, a social business consultancy, told the newspaper that the popularity of the page shows that the ability to publicly humiliate wrongdoers “taps into a very basic primal part of who we are as human beings.” Only a quarter of the people in urban India have access to the Internet access, and they are usually the wealthiest. India has the highest number of traffic fatalities of any country. New Delhi has about 5,000 traffic officers and, at the beginning of 2010, about 6.5 million vehicles –with the number continuing to grow. Four police officers monitor the Facebook page. As well as looking at the potential violations, they post information about traffic and respond to tips and questions.