Twenty-four drivers have been issued prohibition orders following a special vehicle inspection operation in Wellawaya and Uva Kuda Oya targeting safety defects and unauthorised modifications.
Officers from the Wellawaya and Uva Kuda Oya police stations carried out the operation together with Motor Vehicle Inspection Officers, focusing on vehicles fitted with unauthorised additional parts and those found to be in poor mechanical condition, Ada Derana reported.
During the inspection, officers identified 24 vehicles being operated with defects and modifications capable of affecting road safety.
Prohibition orders were issued against the drivers of those vehicles, barring them from continuing to operate them until the identified problems are corrected. The drivers have been given 14 days to carry out repairs and strip out the unauthorised modifications.
Officials said similar inspection operations will continue as part of ongoing efforts to improve road safety and ensure vehicles on public roads comply with legal and safety requirements.
A prohibition order under the Motor Traffic Act takes a vehicle off the road until it is brought back into a roadworthy condition and re-examined, rather than imposing a fine on the driver. It is the standard enforcement tool where the defect, rather than the driving, is the hazard.
Unauthorised modifications — including altered exhausts, lighting, bodywork and suspension — have been a recurring focus of police operations this year, with similar crackdowns reported in Homagama and other areas. Police have linked heavily modified vehicles, particularly motorcycles, to a share of serious road crashes, and Sri Lanka continues to record several thousand road deaths annually.
