VIJAYAWADA: Despite the Road Transport Authority making it mandatory for vehicles to install speed governors, private bus travel operators and owners of vehicles like tempos, goods auto have bend the rules.
Leave aside equipping vehicles with speed governors, the owners are not even maintaining the speed limit while driving.
The two recent road accidents that were reported in Vijayawada, one at Seethannapet junction and the other at Pydurupadu village are clear cases of over-speeding and exposes the lack of monitoring by road transport officials on private travel bus operations. In both the mishaps, the buses belonged to Omar-Kaleswari Travels , neither of which were equipped with speed governors.
On December 10, a Volvo bus, which reached Vijayawada around 2 am, hit an auto initially at Seethannapet junction, dragged a few metres and was stuck with the canal railing which prevented the bus from falling into the canal.
A police official claimed that CCTV footage showed that the bus was being driven at a speed of 100 km/ph.
On December 15, four passengers, out of 40, were injured after the bus they were travelling on turned turtle near Pydurupadu village in the wee hours on Friday. Passengers had claimed that the bus had averted falling into a 10 feet pond.
According to RTA officials, in AP, around 2 lakh transport vehicles ply on the roads out of which more than 2000 buses belong to private operators and 11, 865 buses belong to APSRTC.
Shockingly, only 20 per cent of private buses and not more than 10 per cent of transport vehicles are equipped with speed governors.
Even the much-relied upon APSRTC is involved in this malpractice. APSRTC has 2,700 AC buses and most of them are yet to be equipped with speed governing mechanism.
When contacted, Krishna district Deputy Transport Commissioner (DTC) E Meera Prasad said they are conducting special drives across the State and forcing owners of travel buses and transport vehicles to install speed governors immediately. He further said owners are unwilling to spend around `8,000 to install speed governor in their vehicle.
Dismal ‘State’
More than 60 per cent bus accidents are due to over-speeding.
Private operators claim that they will not get passengers if they run within the prescribed speed limit of 80 kmph.
Most owners unwilling to dole out J8,000 for a speed governor
