Centre plans committee to set up standards for drivers’ hours behind wheel on road

To reduce road accidents caused by sleepy drivers, the Union Ministry of Road Transport planned to set up a committee to formulate standards for driver drowsiness and alertness system.

A panel of Automotive Industry Standards Committee (AISC) was being constituted, the road transport ministry informed the Parliamentary Stand Committee on Transport and Tourism on Wednesday.

The parliamentary committee, in its report presented at the just-concluded Monsoon Session of Parliament, said that drivers’ hours behind the steering wheel should be regulated by introducing a log in and log out system for driving, and that per day driving hours must also be restricted to a specific number.

The committee also said that despite quality highways being built by the government, these roads became infamous for frequent fatal accidents.

Union road transport minister Nitin Gadkari had earlier said that the government would make a policy to install sleep detection sensors using artificial intelligence on commercial vehicles, at par with the European standards.

Gadkari also emphasised the need to fix driving hours for truck drivers, similar to pilots’ flying hours, to reduce fatigue-induced road accidents.

Between January and December 2020, 3,66,138 accidents were recorded in the country—of which 1,16,496 happened on national highways, making it 31.8 per cent of the total road mishaps with 47,984 fatalities.

Of the country’s total road length of 63.71 lakh kilometres as on March 31, 2019, national highways constituted just 1.32 lakh kilometres making it just 2.1 per cent of the total road in India.

Although the parliamentary panel noted that the government brought in an amendment to the Motor Vehicle Act to impose stricter penalties against traffic rules violators, it also said that the ministry should track compliance with the measures taken, and, in case of violations of the relevant rules, take corrective action.