Ninety-five dead, 350 injured. That’s the toll of rash driving on city roads in the first seven months of the year. That Chandigarh is driving too fast, and too dangerous, is evident from the Traffic Police’s challan figures: 2,000 every month, for violating traffic rules.

According to the Traffic Police figures, 7,246 challans have been issued for violating speed limits till date this year. That’s a good 1,500 more vis-à-vis last year.

Challan figures say jumping traffic signals tops the list of most-repeated offences, with 9,635 violators fined for jumping red light, as the common parlance goes.

“Both overspeeding and jumping lights are grave traffic offences, and account for a huge number of accidents, often fatal,” a senior Traffic official said. “We conduct traffic drives periodically to check these two violations in particular, but city drivers still show little concern (about learning their lessons).”

According to Traffic cops, driving with high-beam lights switched on at night is another major cause for concern — it’s the third-most repeated traffic offence, with over 5,000 challans till this July 31 — and is closely followed by two-wheeler riders zooming around city without the wearing safety helmets on. Over 2,054 bike and scooter riders, particularly youngsters, were challaned for not donning helmets till date this year, the figures show.

Ditching the safety helmet while on your two-wheeler is just not on, a Traffic official said. “It’s more dangerous than we would like to believe. We have seen at least a dozen fatal accidents in which the riders were not wearing helmets. The fatalities could have been averted if they had helmets on,” the official said.

The official said the Traffic Police’s recent drive was to enforce this rule, “and also prevent youngsters from risking their lives by not wearing a helmet just for pride’s sake”.

Interestingly, the number of violations in which car owners used dark films on windowpanes has reduced considerably when compared to 2005 — against 500 violators challaned last year, it’s down to 314 till this August-end.