A Bengaluru scooter owner gets slapped with a ₹500 fine after an AI traffic camera mistakes a guitar in his backpack for a helmetless pillion passenger.

Bengaluru: An AI traffic camera in Bengaluru mistakenly identified a guitar carried in a backpack as a passenger, resulting in a ₹500 fine for a scooter owner. The e-challan was issued on the grounds that the pillion passenger was not wearing a helmet. However, the image attached to the challan clearly showed that no one was riding in the back, and the AI camera had misidentified the guitar on the rider's shoulder as a passenger.
Souvik, a resident of Hebbal in Bengaluru, encountered the erroneous fine while commuting on his scooter recently. He discovered the mistake when the e-challan for riding without a helmet arrived in the name of his wife, the registered owner of the vehicle.
The photo accompanying the challan clearly showed a guitar rather than a human passenger in the rear seat. Souvik brought the humorous mix-up to light by sharing the incident and the photographic evidence on social media.
Published: 28 Sept 2026, 08:05 am IST
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Sruthi Paruthikad
sruthiparuthikad@mpp.co.inSenior content writer specialising in news writing and copy editing since 2007
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