Date:30/09/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/30/stories/2008093050360100.htm

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SC to take up speed governor case today

Anil Kumar Sastry

Transport operators stick to their decision to go on strike

BANGALORE: Various transport organisations on Monday reiterated their threat to go ahead with the proposed strike from Tuesday midnight against the speed governor rule. If the Supreme Court upholds the Karnataka High Court order on Tuesday, all the organisations will have their vehicles off the road even as inter-State operators will not enter Karnataka, representatives of these organisations.

Transport Minister R. Ashok appealed to these operators to withdraw their strike and wait for the Supreme Court verdict. He told presspersons here on Monday that the authority to order installation of speed governors was now with the Centre and the State Government was helpless in the matter. The State Government had done its best to convince the Supreme Court on the need for a uniform policy across the country governing speed governors, he added.

No study

It has been nearly three years since all heavy goods vehicles, stage carriages, contract carriages and school buses were fitted with speed governors in Kerala. Neither has there been any study on the impact of this device nor has there been any marked change in the accident rate in that State during these years.

No study has either been conducted by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.

The Ministry’s website just lists the number of accidents, State-wise statistics and the number of those killed in these accidents, that too as of 2004. No scientific study on the nature of accidents and the causes appears to have been conducted by the Ministry.

However, the statistics show a decline in the number of accidents and the number of deaths per thousand vehicles since 1971 without there being any speed governor rule.

While 814.42 accidents and 103.50 deaths were reported per thousand vehicles in 1971, it came down to 147.56 and 53.09 in 1990, 80.12 and 18.27 in 200 and 59.12 accidents and 12.74 deaths in 2004. The number of vehicles during the period grew from 1,14,100 to 4,29,910 and the number of total deaths increased from 14,500 to 92,618.

Lobby at work?

Transporters’ organisations have been alleging that the lobby of speed governor manufacturers was behind enforcement of this rule. If the rule was enforced across the country, nearly one crore transport vehicles would have to be fitted with these devices and each unit of the device costs not less than Rs. 15,000. Manufacturers of the device stand to mop up not less than Rs. 15,000 crore.