Cabinet may clear Road Safety Bill this week

8220;The National Road Safety Bill has been cleared by the Law Ministry and recently it was also passed by the Committee of Secretaries. It will now go to the Cabinet for approval on May 1. The idea is to get the Bill through this Parliamentary session,8221; said a senior official from the ministry.

The Bill will help institute state-level Road Safety Boards that will look into all aspects like safe road designs, road safety database, vulnerable passengers, driver training and refresher courses and enabling of legal and financial set up conducive for road safety.

The Bill is linked with the idea of creating a national Road Safety Board fund that will be raised through imposition of a 1 per cent cess on fuel. It has been drafted on the basis of recommendations made by the Sundar committee on road safety in February 2007. All stakeholders, including state Government officials, in a conference held last year, have examined the draft Bill.

The ministry is also eager to place before Parliament,some amendments to the Motor Vehicles Act. A Parliamentary Standing Committee has called for 8220;stringent8221; and strong 8220;deterrent8221; measures against traffic violations and accidents in their recommendations on the amendments to Motor Vehicles Act. Calling for rigorous imprisonment for causing fatal accidents, issuing prohibitively high fines for violations, on-the-spot suspension of licence for drunken driving, the committee has likened road accidents to a 8220;disease8221; pervading the length and breadth of the country and has called for 8220;strengthened action8221;. That, clubbed with amended the MV Act, should help check the soaring road accident toll in the country, said officials.

India 8216;s road accident tally was the second highest in the world in 2005 at over 96,000 people killed but is at 1.05 lakh now and hence the highest in the world. Road accidents increased in the country by 4.9 per cent from 2005 to 2006 and 20 per cent of the road accidents in the country were fatal 8212; there was one fatality per 4.4 road accidents, as per the ministry data.

China, in contrast, is fast bringing down the death tally. In 2005, the country reported 4,50,254 road traffic accidents and 98,738 people killed. The figures for 2006 show 3,78,781 accidents and 89,455 people killed 8212; a 15.9 per cent reduction in the number of accidents and 9.4 per cent in deaths. The number of traffic accidents in China dropped by an annual average 10.8 percent for four consecutive years from 2003, despite continuous growth in the number of privately owned cars. And road death toll dropped to 89,455 in 2006 from 1,04,000 in 2003.