http://morth.nic.in/writereaddata/linkimages/Comparison%20with%20the%20old%20act-2804955856.pdf
The draft Road Safety and Transport Bill 2014 can be downloaded using this link.
Link Version 1:
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“Suggestions for the Road Transport and Safety Bill”
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By when it is to be submitted? I have listed points will try to write in 2-3 days.
Defacing Sign Boards section 219 (4): Adequate & well located sign boards are very important ingredient of any road. However, mostly one can find that political parties treat them as personal property and take full liberty to deface them showing utter nuisance and causing hardship to road users even at times endangering them. Please provide heavy penalty under this act for defacement of road signs. Under proposed law only advisory has been issued to public to not to deface them which is grossly insufficient.
Obstruction to traffic signs: sec 219(3) -Under proposed law a police officer may remove the obstruction to any traffic sign only if a notification to that effect has been issued by a State Government or the State Transport Authority or the State Authority. If an advertisement board is causing obstruction to any traffic sign – why notification of state Govt. is required to remove it? It is felt condition of issuance of such notification may be dispensed with and the act should directly authorize, rather cast a duty on traffic police to regularly inspect roads & remove such boards, otherwise it will only remain a theoretical concept. This is an important safety measure and cannot be compromised or left at the will of other authority.
Road Blockage: At present there is no law to punish a person blocking road or footpath. The old provision of IPC sec 283 and several other local provisions are rendered inadequate due to extremely low amount of penalty and no enforcement. This needs to be tackled by current legislation. Purposely blocking a road, scuffling on road should attract heavy penalty/imprisonment. In all cases of accident which does not involve any injury to human being the first duty of any driver should be to remove vehicle from carriage way rather than to first settle score with opponent.
Footpath Blockage: Like road blockage there is no effective law at present to deal with footpath blockage. Even the present legislation of IPC 283 is not followed due to very low penalty of Rs.200/-. At present any one can block the road/footpath at will without fear of any punishment. Currently no authority is interested to take responsibility to enforce it neither police nor other civic bodies. Free & obstruction free footpath being necessary to ensure safety of pedestrians, this bill will remain totally incomplete if no sufficient penalty is prescribed for blocking a footpath. There are numerous ways for blocking footpath like fixing obstructing sign boards, constructing walls, encroachment, parking vehicle etc. Also needs to be mentioned the responsible agency to enforce enforcement the law.
Alternate Vehicle Fuel: Sec 60 – It talks about alternate fuel of CNG, LPG, ethanol, electricity only. However, soon we are going to have vehicle running on Hydrogen, so it may also be included in the list for being promotion as an alternate fuel.
Advertisement Policy sec 219 (3) : Please lay down an advertisement policy, if not for all roads, at least for all national & state highways. This may be in consonance with various court pronouncements. As we know that inappropriate advertisement boards are a safety hazard just removal of advertisement boards may not be sufficient until proper guidelines for fixation of same are laid down in the act itself otherwise it may lead to arbitrariness. Since this is an important safety aspect, act would not be comprehensive if one has to refer different laws or court pronouncements for issues connected with roads.
Potholes: A lot is being done about enhancing road safety measures but no civic body is being made accountable for breach of it. Among other things one of the major threat to road safety is potholes which does not find place in the new act. The new act must address the complete redressal system of potholes repair on roads. A mechanism be placed in force defining accountability of the concerned civic body for repair of potholes in a time bound manner.
Toll Plaza: There are toll plazas which only issue ticket for one way travel e.g. NH-8 Gurgaon Expressway Toll Plaza (since closed down). However, on all plazas there are sizable number of vehicles which want a 2 way to & fro ticket. Issuing single way ticket leads to waste of time as vehicle has to be in line twice and lead to inefficient working please make it mandatory for all toll booths to issue a 2 way ticket.
Even Road Usage: The states collect entry tax on date basis e.g. if any vehicle entering on 1600 hours and coming back after 9 hours has to shell out tax or 2 days. Therefore, to avail maximum benefit vehicle try to pass inter-state border at 0000 hours. This leads to huge wastage of time & energy as vehicles start piling up near border and create chaotic conditions at border as every one wants to cross at same time. On one side we regulate truck entry during night so as to have even road usage and on other side we encourage vehicles to pile up at border. The accumulated vehicles lead to higher pollution levels and is also a safety breach where huge number of vehicles enter at same time. Therefore, it is suggested that act make it mandatory to regulate entry & exit to any state on 24 hours basis from any point of time to any point of time. This will help in dispersing vehicle load on roads.
Unified DL System – Chapter IV – It is suggested that the DL identification parameter for any applicant under new driving authorization should only be Aadhar based. This would avoid duplication of efforts in maintaining data base. The authorization should also not have any new serial number but ‘Aadhar’ number should be used as license number. This will not only relive the authority from maintaining new data base but will also be of great relief to individual users as they need not to maintain a new number. This will be in sync with the national efforts to culminate more & more identification proof emanating from same data base. The service tax department has already done a similar thing whereby they don’t issue a new Service Tax number to new registrants but the PAN number is used as Service Tax number also.
Further, the authorization should be on a ‘demat’ format with no difference in original or duplicate and the user must also be authorized to obtain as many copies as he wants on payment of prescribe fees. Since authorization is for any individual with Aadhar based identification parameters, there is no need to attach undue importance to its original physical availability. Gradual trend everywhere is to keep documents in demat format like insurance policies, bank FD, share certificate. This will relieve police & licensing department form a sizable administrative work because this document finds high place in the list of lost documents. Even if you see at present in Delhi if one looses his DL, he has to go online to Delhi Police website to file a complaint. Generate print out of that complaint, submit it along with application form & fee to authority and obtain another one. The website of Police has clear disclaimer that no action shall be taken by Police on such online complaints and this facility is to facilitate citizen obtain duplicate copy of the lost document. The whole process clearly confirms that issue of another copy of DL should be a free process. To quote an example Income Tax Department places no restriction on issue of PAN card, one can get as many PAN cards by paying fee.
Horn Sound: At present sound system used in different vehicles is not representative. Similar horns are used for all kind of vehicles. We suggest that differential 3 tier Sound System be introduced for identification of heavy, medium & rest of vehicle.
Sound as industry has made significant progress and gained fine technicalities to produce several types of different sounds. Horn is an important instrument of safety for vehicles itself & for others on its way. I suggest that in new bill, technical specification of types of sound of horns used by vehicles be specified. Three different sounds be approved for (a) heavy vehicles (b) light motor vehicles and (c) other vehicles.
The differential sound of horn is very useful in creating
appropriate awareness/warning to the person who hears this from a distance –
just by horn one can make out which type of vehicles is coming. Especially in
darkness if heavy vehicle is approaching the information could be very useful.
This can prove to be a very important safety aspect for pedestrians.
Further, the pitch of sound should be fixed such that it
does not pierce the ear. The appropriate sound pitch
should be determined after taking advise from relevant medical specialists.
Traffic Helpline: At present each city traffic has its own different local helpline number which people use in case of traffic jams or complaining about non-functional traffic signals and other violations. Due to different numbers travellers find it difficult to contact traffic police across cities, in Delhi itself we have seen traffic police number changing at times. It is, therefore, recommended that like other national help line numbers traffic police be also made contactable thru a single helpline number. The number could be ‘140’, this is the next in serial to all India railway helpline number i.e. 139.
Traffic Pole Inventory: The traffic poles are installed but maintenance of such poles & keeping inventory is not very scientific. It is indeed very difficult to describe the identification of a faulty signal to traffic police. Hence it is suggested every traffic poll in the country must have an identification number, it may not be unique but city specific. Same can be used for filing complaints if pole is not working or if one wants to forward suggestion about its working pattern. The number must be painted on it. It will be easy for traffic police also to use such identification number in handling complaints and for internal administrative purposes. It is suggested that for ease of reference the number should not be exceeding 4/5 digits.
Footpath Design: sec 177(1)(h)/(8)(a) - Footpath is a very important aspect of road safety. At present there is no uniformity in the way footpaths are constructed and maintained in India. Vehicles parked on footpath & pedestrians walking on road is a common site in Delhi. Not only this every state & city has its own specifications & perceptions. The complete footpath design & specification be made part of this act so as to bring uniformity of standards in India. This should include complete design parameters entry, exit, height, tree base, width etc.
Speed Breaker: section 179(8)(d): In addition to indicate where traffic calming & speed control measures are to be taken please also specify the design parameters of such construction as there is no unification of such measures in India. There are varying perceptions about these in different parts of the country and among different authorities. At many places dangerous speed breakers can be seen even on highways.
Footpath & other verges: section 179 (8) (a) : In addition to indicate the place where footpath has to be made please also include in it the design specifications to include height, width, nature of construction material etc.
Model Code: Act must also enlist model code of conduct by road users & civic bodies. Like what to do in case you witness victims of accident, No littering on road, cleaning of road & repairing of street light only during at a time when there is very less traffic, no dug up spaces etc.
Motor Vehicle Regulation & Road Safety Authority of India. A Central Authority and State Authority for all TRAFFIC and TRANSPORT related matters.
Along with CMV there must be Pedestrain Safety Act must be passed by Parliament
PENALTY: The penalty of DL should linked to vehicle Reg No and if repeated offense the vehicle permit also to be terminated. As most of the pvt commercial vehicles the driver goes to jail but no accountability on owners who are mainly big time transporters with high links.
Centralised Helplines for Road users :
All road should have standard Design as done by UTTIPEC Sample for across India. Any new tender awarded from 2015 must comply with this and existing ones to be changed similarly.
VEHICLE SAFETY :
DL: Driving License or License to Job ??
INSURANCE : SCAM or PROTECTION ?
MANDATORY in Vehicles: Airbags, Seatbets, Crash Certificates, Front Camera not rear camera(this help each individual start recording 30 min minum video of the vehicle movements easy to find who is fault-also for insrance purposes- most importantly any crime or events could be recorded on its move) instead of expensive audio system a MUST.
MANUFACTURERS ACCOUNTABILITY : If the speed limit for a vehicle in Delhi is 40 KMP, why the vehicle fix speed governor instead make it part of the manufacturer liability to fix the speed and crossing the limit the vehicle shut down.
FITNESS OF VEHICLES: THE RESPECTIVE AUTHORISED SERVICE AGENCIES SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO ISSUE IN CASE OF PVT VEHICLES, COMMERCIALS VEHILCES DIFFRENTLY.
ACCIDENT Relief : 20% OF INSURAANCE COMPANIES COLLECTION MUST BE RESERVED FOR THIS.
All roads other than NH should be under single authority (Road corporation unlike Delhi where 20 agencies own the roads) in respective states
All vehicles must be treated as National Permit instead of current one
All vehicles irrespctive state must pay equal one time parking charges(For Delhi regd vehicle there is but for vehicle registered in gurgaon it is not).
FREIGHT vehicles are 90% breakdown on road lead to jam- Ensure that they are comply with fitness and if any breakdown if the same is not removed within 1 hour the vehicle to be impounded.
OVER WEIGHT: To make it mandatory to have all Entry points of States and Districts to have automated weigh and size of vehicle automated. The over loaded vehicle not just increase pollution but reduce the life of the roads and cause accidents, not just weighbts but also loaded material shoul not be outside the vehicles such as Roads/Steel items or even Farmers Tractors carry fodder etc.
Ref from othersThere are clauses on page 254 (309) about forcing helmets/visibility gear on bicyclists and fines of 1500/-
This is something that is not needed.
Each Sections or Rule should be clearly mentioned and clarified who WILL ENFORCE/REGULATE them . Single agency NO Collaborative ones.
Additoinal Driving Training and Certificate must for depend upon the type of vehicle put on use be it Public/School/Transport/HTV /JCB/Cranes etc..
What will be the fate of the various prevailing MV Acts?