JOIN USThe Supreme Court on Monday sought the Centre’s response on a PIL seeking uniform regulations to manage stationary vehicles on highways and trucks carrying sharp objects like rods that pose a danger to the passing vehicles.
A bench of Justices T S Thakur and J S Khehar admitted the PIL filed by NGO Savelife Foundation and its founder Piyush Tewari and issued notice to the Road Transport Ministry.
Representing the petitioners, senior advocate Indu Malhotra submitted that road safety regulations are inadequate, particularly in respect of heavy vehicles parked on the wayside or stalled on Highways, Expressways and city streets, and those carrying iron rods, angles, pipes, poles and other construction material sticking out from the body of the vehicle.
The petition sought quashing of the Rule 93(8) of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 which permitted vehicles to carry objects protruding, though not beyond one meter, from the rear most part of the vehicle. It pointed out that since 2006; India suffered the highest number of road accident deaths in the world, an average of about 15 deaths every hour.
“In the year 2011, over 1,36,000 people died on account of road accidents in India. The World Health Organisation has projected that by 2020 road accidents will be one of the biggest killers in India, accounting for 546,000 annual deaths (World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention, 2004),” the petitioners contended.
They claimed that existing legislations like the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 and the Central Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989 were highly inadequate to regulate the construction industry and the transportation of iron and steel rods used in construction works.
DH News Service