Owner of the 2017 KTM Duke 390, Muhammed Ismail M was riding his bike recently when a couple of cops stopped him. When asked why was he stopped, the cops did not seem to have a clear answer, but they were angry at seeing a KTM. Soon they noticed the GoPro mounted on his helmet and realized that everything was getting recorded.
They asked Muhammed to remove his helmet, which he does. Soon after he removes the helmet, the cops forcefully take away the helmet. After some argument, the cops decide to fine Muhammed for recording. The Kerala cops say that it is illegal to record or use a camera on a motorcycle. They also say on camera that because of adding camera to helmet, the bike is now modified, which is a punishable offence. Watch the video below.
Obviously, the cops are not correct. It is not illegal to record public roads while riding. Also, it is not a modification job. After a lot of arguing, the cops fined Muhammed for not having rear view mirrors, and not for modifying his bike by adding a recording device.
Cops stopping bikers who are especially riding powerful bikes seems to have become a norm in India. Every now and then, bikers report of incidents when they are in full riding / safety gear, riding within speed limit, and were still getting stopped by cops for overspeeding.
A similar incident happened to a KTM RC390 owner in Kerela recently. Traffic cops stopped this biker who was wearing riding gloves and helmet. When the biker stopped, and parked his bike on the side, the first thing cop demands is the key to his bike!
The biker refuses to give key and asks the policeman for what reason was he stopped. The cop replies saying that he was overspeeding. To which the biker claims that he was not overspeeding at all. In fact the biker claims that he was only doing 30 kmph, which was well within the speed limit. After a lot of argument, more cops arrive at the scene.
In the video, the KTM biker claims the first cop who stopped him did it for no reason. That he wasn’t overspeeding, he was wearing his helmet and he was going at 30 kmph. To this, the cops in the video say – You were speeding. As per the biker he says he was not overspeeding. He asks the cops to give proof of him overspeeding.
A senior cop too joins the scene, he comes with a van full of cops and demands the biker to give his bike key. The senior cop takes the key from him and give it to a constable. They tell him we’ll see you at the station and then at the court. The cop also tells the biker not to take photo as it is illegal. The biker replies, he is not taking a photo, but doing a Facebook LIVE video.
The strangest thing here happens when the cop who tries to take the bike away from the spot, finds it difficult to ride the KTM. It could be possible that it is for the first time he was riding a KTM. Somehow the cops manage to ride the bike, and take it away from the incident spot as there were lot of people gathering. Strangely, the cop who rode away with the KTM, did so without wearing a helmet.
Watch the video below.
There is no rule that says traffic cops are allowed to remove the keys of your bike. But, they keep doing that. Every day they do this to thousands of bikers. Because of this, a biker couple had to lose their lives a few days back.
A cop in Vishakhapatnam, tried to pull out key from a moving bike. Because of this, the rider lost balance, and ended up falling from his biker. Sadly, they fell on the road, in the path of an oncoming tanker. The pillion lady died on the spot while the biker succumbed to his injuries in the hospital. The crowd who saw this entire incident, turned into a mob and started thrashing the cop. Watch the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTdOneKxGOg
Are cops allowed to confiscate your bike, and if they are, are they allowed to ride your bike away? And that too without wearing a helmet? This is not the first time cops have been caught. A few weeks back, cops were caught stopping bikers and pulling keys out of their bike, just because the riders were wearing proper safety gears.
These riders were astride a Kawasaki Ninja 300, KTM Duke and KTM RC 390 and were abiding by the rules of the road but were still harassed for over an hour by the cops. The cops removed keys from the bikes and accused riders of jumping the signal. When the riders vehemently protested against such accusations, the cops stated that they were speeding even as the speedometer did not show above 50 kmph in the video.
The cops then went on to harass the riders claiming that since they were wearing protective gear they assumed they were speeding. When proved wrong yet again, they complained about the bikers having their headlamps on in the day. The cops seemed unaware of the new government policy to include Automatic Head On (AHO) feature on all two wheelers for better visibility.
This is not the first time that the cops in Chennai have acted rashly. The cops have seized over 10 supercars earlier this year on allegations that they were overspeeding and making loud noise. There have also been many riders astride high performance bikes who have been stopped as they were wearing protective gear and assumed to be speeding.
It is about time that the cops ensure that they are properly informed about speeding and riders actually breaking road regulations before they continue to harass innocent, law abiding citizens.
