NEW DELHI: With an aim to reduce increasing risk to small children and pedestrians from reversing motor vehicles, government will soon make rear view sensors or back camera mandatory on all new vehicles.
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) is likely to soon issue a notification to make rear view sensors mandatory in all vehicles, said Abhay Damle , Joint Secretary, MoRTH.
“Although most cars come equipped with rear view mirrors which are adequate for detecting vehicles behind a car, but they are inadequate on for detecting small children or objects close to the ground, which fall in the car's blind spot,” he said while speaking at an event organised by International Road Federation (IRF) Thursday.
With more than 50,000 fatal accidents in the country happening due to over speeding, the ministry is also planning to make speed warning beep audio warning mandatory in vehicles on similar lines of seat belt wearing sign. At speed of 80 kmph small beep sound warning will come and after the speed of 90 kmph a continuous beep will alarm the speeding driver.
“The government has already made it compulsory for all two-wheelers, which account for the highest share of accidents in the country, to either have the anti-lock braking system (ABS) or the combined braking system (CBS) by April 2019,” said Damle.
To bring down fatal road accidents, Government is also making air bags mandatory in all vehicles and from October 1, 2018 all vehicles will have to go in for automated inspection and fitness certification test with hardly any human intervention, similarly Driving License test will also become automated by that time.
“In The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, which will be introduced in the coming winter session of the parliament has made provisions for legal protection of Good Samaritans who help accident victims. Government has added a significant clause under which a Good Samaritan’s affidavit will have the legal force of a statement. If a statement is required, it should be recorded in a single examination. And for further information the judicial or law officer will have to go to his house and record the statement,” he said.
According to latest data, almost 5 lakh road accidents occurred in the country last year, killing 146,000 people and leaving thrice the number injured. There has been an increase of 2.5 percent in number of accidents over 2014.