Road Transport and Safety Bill-2014 : Seeks to end bad road behaviour

It may not be incorrect to say that the accident which killed Union minister Gopinath Munde led to the Centre coming up with the Road Transport and Safety Bill, 2014. In 2012, the parliamentary standing committee had rejected the Bill.

For years now, sections of public authority as well as independent groups have been of the opinion that there's an urgent need to increase traffic violation penalty amount. Some even called for a 'reform'.

Piyush Tewari's Save Life Foundation was one such organisation that wanted a reform in the sector and is supporting the Bill by terming it a comprehensive one to bring down deaths on road.

The Bill will pave the way for Vehicle Regulation and Road Safety Authority prescribing minimum safety standards for vehicles, roads and its users. The authority will have to maintain a National Unified Information System, thereby centralising details on vehicle registrations, driving licences, insurance, permits, penalties, accidents, etc.

Presently, there are several individuals holding more than one driving licence, the Bill will end this with a Unified Driving Licensing System as well as Automated Driving Licence tests.

"At the ITO intersection in Delhi, there are 1.4 crore traffic violations every month, but only around 5,000 are penalised. This is because enforcement is human dependent and mired in corruption," said Tewari.

According to him, the major causes of road accidents is bad road behaviour as well as faulty licence issuing mechanism and mandatory training not mentioned in the existing Motor Vehicles Act.

For an integrated road safety plan, a common Road Accident Emergency Access Telephone Number will be introduced. Additionally, there will be a Uniform Road Accident Investigation System, making it a specialised body to look into each case rather than being mechanical on the subject due to staff shortage and workload.

"Moreover, Indian Road Congress guidelines are grossly outdated. The road designs are faulty and dangerous, resulting in higher accident rate. The Bill will hold such authorities responsible, who err in road designs," informed Tewari.

One section opposing the Bill is the automobile industry. "(That's) because it will have to better safety levels of vehicles as they do not meet international standards. Airbags that cost just Rs3,000 are not included in the basic model of every vehicle, but automobile manufacturers increase price of a vehicle by more than Rs30,000 if a consumer wants airbags, along with power windows and chrome-plated wheels. Isn't this a compromise on safety?" asked Tewari.

Another concept is to have a freight network in India for inter-state movement of goods, but truck owners are opposing it because they will be made accountable for overloading of heavy vehicles, and it will also curb exploitation of the drivers, who are given incentives to reach a destination ahead of time. This also results in fatalities on highways.

The Bill is also looked at as something that will take away state government's revenue, but, Tewari maintained, as per the Bill, the Centre will facilitate state's revenue collection.

"The sectors opposing it want corruption to continue," added Tewari.

Bill will benefit pvt players at the cost of state corps: Trade bodies

Here's the flip side to the Road Transport and Safety Bill, 2014. It not only violates constitutional provisions but also makes it difficult for state road transport corporations to survive, enabling private players to flourish. Drivers of heavy vehicles will only get sandwiched further by coughing up heavy penalties due to non-existence of segregated roads for heavy vehicles.

"The Draft Road Transport and Safety Bill, 2014, has been put in public domain. We express dissent against it as it is unrealistic. It is said the Bill is drafted with the best practices of advanced nations, but the government is proposing it without assessing the ground realities in India. Here, we have bad roads, resulting in high number of accidents. We are still backward in implementation of the latest technology. Transport drivers are seen as criminals, road condition is poor, vehicle population is increasing... There is also shortage of drivers," said KK Divakaran, general secretary of All India Road Transport Workers' Federation (AIRTWF).

As mentioned in the Bill's section 336, the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, will be repealed and road transport, which has been a state subject, will come under the Centre.

However, section 340 protects state and central governments or officers from prosecution if they act in "good faith", a definition that is very vague. "It is also against the principles of natural justice and law, and is tantamount to encroachment in the purview of the judiciary," said AIRTWF representatives.

Also, if the Bill is approved the government will identify the bus routes and sanction them, road transport corporations (RTCs) will have to participate in the auction, along with other operators, wherein private operators will take away the profitable routes, thus paving a dangerous way for the closure of, or massive losses for, RTCs.

"The Bill also legalises illegal operation by private operators. Private players who obtain contract carriage permits are violating permit conditions and resorting to operate as stage carriages, due to which government faces huge losses. Yet the Bill provisions have been made to safeguard the interests of private operators. There won't be any discrimination between stage carriage permit and contract carriage permit," said Hanumant Tate, general secretary of Maharashtra State Transport Kamgar Sangathna.

The Bill has heavy penalties for errant drivers, including those driving trucks. What trade unions want is segregation of roads for heavy vehicles, as, they say, this will result in reduction of accidents by 50%. If conditions for drivers, who are currently forced to stretch working hours, are improved, accidents too will drastically come down, they believe.

Maharashtra State Transport Kamgar Sangathna, BEST Workers Union, Maharashtra Transport Workers Union, AIRTWF, Mumbai Autorickshawmen's Union, Gujarat State Transport Workers Federation, and other trade unions have planned an agitation at Jantar Mantar in Delhi on December 18 to oppose the Bill.

Fact of the matter
1 road accident death every 4 minutes
16 deaths every hour due to road accidents
377 deaths every day, equivalent to a jumbo jet crashing every day
12.02 lakh people killed in road accidents in India in the past decade
46 lakh people seriously injured or disabled in road accidents in India in the last decade
Age group of 30-44 years most susceptible to road accidents in India
1 out of 4 road accident deaths happens on a two-wheeler
Tamil Nadu tops number of people injured in road accidents
2 people die every hour in Uttar Pradesh, making it a state with maximum deaths due to road accidents
20 children aged under 14 die daily due to road accidents
2 women die every hour due to road accidents in India
5th highest number of road accidents in India are in Mumbai, Delhi tops it.
India accounts for 1% of the world's vehicles but 10% of road accidents worldwide
111 is the percentage of under reporting of road accidents in India
India tops the chart of number of road fatalities, followed by China, Brazil and the US
Rs9,177.32 crore is the cost incurred by insurance companies on third-party claims in road accidents during the fiscal 2012-13