According to the 234th report of the standing committee on transport, tourism and culture that was tabled in Parliament recently, there are hurdles preventing the replacement of existing Motor Vehicles Act with a proposed Road Transport and Safety Bill, 2015. While the data presented by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) in the Rajya Sabha revealed that 1,46,133 people were killed in road accidents in 2015, a 4.6 per cent rise, as compared to 1,39,671 people killed in 2014, the ministry has been looking to change the entire road transport and road safety architecture in India. The plan to set up authorities at the central level and state level to control all aspects of transport and public transport has resulted in a conflict in revenue sharing between the centre and the state. As a result it has stalled some of the proposed ammendments in the bill including provisions for right of way to emergency vehicles like fire tenders, ambulances and police vehicles; use of mobile phones or watching any digital motion picture except for route navigation will be an offence; parking on main roads will be an offence; right of way on undivided roads, divided carriageways, uncontrolled traffic signals and at roundabouts; the movement of heavy and slow moving vehicles restricted to the extreme left lane, and treating road owning agencies or the maintenance bodies as offenders if they fail to install traffic control devices such as signals, road marking and height barriers. A road accident as a result of negligence on such counts will lead to the agencies being charged on count of an offence.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

AlphaOmega Captcha Classica  –  Enter Security Code
     
 

*