Amended Motor Vehicle Act unscientific

The Modi government amended Motor Vehicle Act and has increased the quantum of fines tenfold claiming that it would bring the much-needed traffic discipline and reduce the loss of lives due to road accidents.

While the intention of the Union government is laudable and certainly it will instil greater fear in the minds of the people, the government should ensure that road safety in India should be paved with the behavioural change along with heavy fines.

Indian drivers are notorious for inappropriate parking. They are more bothered about their convenience rather than consideration for others. This emerges from the fact that we do not give scientific training in driving.

There are any number of schools that teach driving but none of them are equipped with necessary simulators. All that they have is couple of cars and some charts in their small shop showing traffic signs. The aspirant drivers are brought on to the roads and lessons in driving are given.

But the so-called trainers do not teach them in scientific manner. Reverse parking which is most important part of driving is also not taught properly. How to pull a vehicle to a side, where to park and how to park, the trainers themselves do not know.

All that matters for them is the fees they charge. Because of the connections they have with the road traffic authorities, they even get the licences with no proper test conducted. Here money makes the mare run.

In addition, we do not have quality roads, no footpaths for pedestrians or lanes for non-motorised vehicles. We have villages opening on to the highways and vehicles from villages coming on the wrong side is a common phenomenon across the country.

The Indian driver feels that helmet and seatbelts are for the sake of policeman and not his safety but then we have any number of people who give sermons on road safety.

We have shops on service roads which are narrow in various colonies. These shops do not have any parking place and hence the motorist must park his vehicle in front of the shop.

The police slap a challan. What is the remedy for the vehicle user? Ask the police and they say it is no parking zone. Agreed, but where is the parking zone? Even the police do not know. They themselves park the vehicles on the road and no one dare question them.

As road infrastructure expands with superfast highways and better intracity links in the form of flyovers and wider roads, experts fear that safety is increasingly being left behind.

Along with high quantum of fine, the government should also concentrate on providing better design and operation of city and rural roads as well as highways, improved safety standards for motor vehicles, and promotion of safe public transportation.

The Motor Vehicle Act, for instance, says that a fine of Rs 10,000 will be levied for not giving way to emergency vehicles such as ambulance or fire brigade.

But then, with the kind of long waiting time at traffic signals and people not having the basic road sense of leaving space even for free left turn, how can a vehicle give way for emergency services.

It's a common scene where the siren of the ambulance is heard but the driver is helpless as there is no space to move his vehicle.

Road safety experts suggest that road designs - lane width, presence of shoulder, number of lanes and median design - all influence driving behaviour.

Therefore, roads themselves play an important role in road safety, and improved geometry design and infrastructure could in turn help to improve road safety.

Hence the Centre should turn attention towards evolving scientific and well defined road safety policies and programmes. Only then the amended Act will have some meaning.