What is the issue?
- Though Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2017 has been heralded as a measure to reduce road accidents, there is no mention of any measures to prevent accidents other than higher penalty for drivers and operators.
- The proposed amendment is harsh on drivers, truckers and small players, without addressing the causes of accidents.
What is the ground reality?
- According to a study only 10 per cent of the accidents occur due to the drivers’ fault.
- Long duty hours, stress and strain on the drivers, particularly, the truck drivers are also contributory factors.
- However, these facts were not considered while its formulation.
- Factors such as traffic discipline, over-congestion, growing number of vehicles beyond the capacity of roads have not been addressed in the Bill.
What are the concerns regarding its provisions?
- To regulate and privatize the regulatory mechanism, right from registration of vehicles to inspection.
- It will be achieved through concentration of all powers with the Centre in the name of simplification and promoting competition.
- This will make the existing State-based regulatory and disciplinary mechanism redundant.
- Further, third party insurance is made mandatory for STU buses putting a big burden on the STUs.
- Despite State Transport Undertakings (STUs) recording the lowest accident rates in the country this Bill will affect them.
- I t also introduces the new concept of ‘Aggregator’.
- However the fallout of private aggregator such as Uber and Ola has not been well analyzed before introducing such a new concept.
- These aggregators are a threat to auto rickshaws drivers, many of whom are self-employed and couldn’t fulfill the promised salary to the drivers who registered their vehicles with them.
- Transport department employees will face job insecurity if their duties and responsibilities are given away to private agencies.
What can be done in this regard?
- Segregation of roads and rectification of defects in the construction of roads should be done immediately.
- Incorporation of road safety and traffic rules in the school curriculum both in Central and State syllabi will help in ingraining the culture of safe driving.
- Reduction of long duty hours and stress and strain on drivers will reduce the accidents due to physical fatigue.
- Provision of parking, resting places, motel facilities on highways and strengthening the public transport system by discouraging personalized transport are the other steps to reduce accidents.
- The present Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill should be revised to reduce accidents rather than creating an uncertain environment for transport workers and facilitating big companies to earn more.