VISAKHAPATNAM: MOTORITS better gear up to face stringent punishments and pay hefty penalties for violation of traffic rules in the future, suggest the delegates of the two-day national workshop on road safety, at Visakhapatnam, on Saturday.
Apart from a recommendation to amend the Motor Vehicle Amendment bill, 2016, the national and international experts on road safety have given a few more suggestions which will be further discussed and put before the Centre, said the State minister for Roads and Transport, Sidda Raghava Rao, who attended the workshop along with 17 other Transport ministers from across the country.
The experts are known to have advised the government to be tough with the repeated offenders in order to control the number of accidents. Doubling and tripling of penalties to and cancellation of licenses of motorists caught violating rules for more than four times are a few recommendations made by the workshop and Andhra Pradesh Transport commissioner N Bala Subramanyam said that these suggestions would be implemented after getting a green signal from the Centre.
Experts from Australia have suggested to set up trauma care centers at private hospitals located close to national highways as they opine that prevention of deaths is more important than preventing accidents. Union minister for Transport Nitin Gadkari has agreed to sanction one-time grant to such hospitals which will also manage the trauma care.
Among other major solutions the workshop suggested to bring down the road accident deaths in the country to half is the establishment of lead agency on Road Safety for district and at state-level. These lead agencies would monitor road engineering and work towards arresting accidents at blackspots and other sensitive areas. Government officials including collectors, officials from various departments like Roads and Buildings, Police, Revenue, District Medical and Health Department, Road Transport Authority, local police would form the agency.
The transport commissioner said that the suggestions include creation of dedicated fund for road safety, in the likes of Kerala, in every state. “The Kerala model of ‘no helmet-no petrol’ was also discussed and will study the feasibility of implementing it in other states too,” said Bala Subramanyam.
Establishing a Uniform Licensing System across the country and giving the responsibility of of improving road safety to Transport department after filling vacant posts have also been suggested by the experts. “The licensing could be made uniform all over the country with individual details synchronized with the servers of all the states. The personal details of the driver can be checked from anywhere in the country instantly,” said Sidda Raghava Rao said.