[sarathlal]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG6v2Mfnpqg

Indian Govt is working to re-draft the 26 year old Motor Vehicle Law.

PTI has reported the details announced by Union transport minister, Mr.Nitin Gadkari after a review of road safety regulations conducted yesterday.
Though there were earlier attempts to amend the laws, the present conditions has led to the decision of a total re draft of the Motor Vehicle Law.

To quote the minister;

“The law has become antiquated and lost its relevance. We will scrap it and bring in a fresh law. The broad contours of the new law will be ready in a month’s time.”

The 1988 Motor Vehicles Act was last amended in 2001.
In March 2012, the cabinet has approved the draft Motor Vehicle Amendment Bill that proposed hefty fines for traffic violations but the bill didn’t get cleared by Parliament.
See our discussion on the previous amendment attempts here.

Key points;

• The law will be re-drafted, rather than amendments.
• Stricter enforcement of laws and rules.
• Car manufacturers may need to improve safety mechanism in their cars
• The points to be in sync with six advanced nations – USA, Canada, Singapore, Japan, Germany and the UK.
• Cut down on human intervention. The reliance would be on sophisticated IT-based systems.
• Installing CCTV cameras at all traffic signals
• Repeated offender licenses to be suspended/cancelled
• Redesigning of heavy vehicles
• Centralizing data to check misuse of driving licenses
• Carriage by Roads Act and Road Transport Corporation Act also to be re touched
• Public transport vehicles plying in all the cities with over 10-lakh population will be fitted with advanced GPS tracking system

Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...w/36110977.cms

[saket77]

Excellent news. Some serious effort finally to curb the menace. I hope the driver's training & licensing part is also looked on. It is the root cause for bad drivers roaming around with the lethal heap of metal in form of vehicles.

[swiftnfurious]

I really hope we will have some sensible, strong & fool proof laws this time. It should start with manufacturer guidelines to safety (crash norms + safety features being mandatory), reduce scope of corruption at all levels, strict training & driving mannerism evaluations & monitoring of roads & vehicles.

I also hope they add guidelines to fast track the cases pertaining to road accidents. They should also have provision to penalize people who indulge in physical assault as a part of road rage for establishing upper hand. I hope all taxi badges are fitted with GPS systems.

Edit:: And some super strong anti-lemon laws + vehicle re-call laws! (if it comes under the scope)

[audioholic]

The overview looks good. Especially if it is drafted based on laws in other countries, we can expect better stuff compared to just banning sunfilms, etc. Definitely a stricter law is the need of the hour and enforcement follows. But traffic police have been active from recent times and if they are backed by stricter laws, they can perform better. Introduction of safety norms that manufacturers must comply to may meet some lobbying but I think the current government is capable enough to get things going and somehow make the manufacturers work in tandem to ensure safer roads.

One strong point I want the lawmakers to introduce is reduce the validity of drivers licence and renew them with a strict, corruption free process. That is good enough to throw the pricks out of the roads.

[wildsdi5530]

I hope they abolish the state-wise LTT and have a single unified registration system.
This will also cut down on multiple vehicles having same Regn. (like private buses).

[Slush_Traveller]

It's a good news that the government is now waking up to amend and improve the laws pretaining to Motor Vehicle, the cars needs to be safer along with our roads, some provision needs to made for quick medical accessibility for the accident victims on Indian highways, along with this the law for Car safety needs to be reinforced , like compulsion of ABS and NCAP testing for all the cars.
Also people must be made aware about spending on Air bags & ABS rather saving money by purchasing an unsafe car.


Note from Support: Post edited to remove political content.

[wanderernomad]

Moreover they should either make life time road tax paid in one state to be valid in the entire union or make the transfer and refund more simpler for people who move between states quite often. I have been transferred to 4 different states since purchasing my Mariana and cannot go on changing the registration number every time I move even when the Government will reimburse the cost of re registration.

[fine69]

Wow, that's a pretty ambitious list of action points they have there! I'm very confident in saying that the state of affairs in June 2015 is still going to be the same.

Making fresh laws isn't going to help when you are not able to enforce the existing laws. Without trying to sound like a pessimist, let me just say that if you not going to attack the root cause of a problem, don't expect that putting better monitoring systems in place would help you eliminate the problem.

Suspending licenses, great! How about revisiting the existing process on how does one get a license.

I think tax-payers money is going to go into all this "sophisticated IT/electronic setups" but the statistics wouldn't change too much unless they substantiate that the no. of road accidents / 1000 vehicles has come down, no. of deaths on road / 1000 people has come down etc.

Its a great initiative like the umpteen others that we've all seen, I'd wait for some solid objective evidence before appreciating this.

[AlphaLamb]

Indeed a good initiative to bring about changes to some antiquated laws, but as stated by one of the members, there are sufficient laws in place and the enforcement of these would solve a majority of the issues.

Though some of the laws with regards to safety (crash test requirements among others) definitely need to be inculcated in to our Motor Laws, others such as using helmets on two wheelers, seat belts in four wheelers among other things are left without their purpose because of lack of enforcement.

So IMO enforcing present rules might help a great way while we wait for new legislation to come into effect.

[AMP]

I have also heard that they are thinking of creating a common database across the country for licenses. This will help in stopping the practice of multiple/fake licenses.

[greatpower]

These laws should also be combined with Road infrastructure i.e. lane markings, proper exit and entry points to highways, traffic lights, use of STOP signs etc.

[scopriobharath]

I would also prefer to see some laws whereby one can claim insurance when rear-ended, without court/case and stuff (just with FIR). Also some defaul laws like the person driving on the wrong side is at fault, accident caused by failure to visibility for not using headlight at night etc.

Laws must be protective to the innocent. If an Audi A6 hits a splendor at night, where the splendor did not use head-lights, then Audi should not be blamed, just because it is a larger vehicle.

There must also be lateral laws for the media and penalties for misrepresentation of information.

"Train hits MUV carrying people" should be "MUV comes in the path of train" or "MUV jumped the level crossing and got hit by train" . While crossing tracks train always has the right of way.

there was a live hit an run in saki naka, where the press reported it as bus runs over biker and kills biker. The reality was the biker tired to overtake the take bus from left at a bus stop, skidded on the sand and came under the rear wheel of the bus. Press reported it as a fault on the bus

[desdemona]

A new cutting-edge motor act will prove, I fear, just an ostentatious 'reform' with little purchase on the barbarism and un-civic conditions of our urban roads.

All to no avail if: (a) state governments do not hire man thousands of traffic cops for each city, and reform their training and work conditions so that they may be trustingly deployed against the mostly powerful/arrogant/aggressive folks who populate the roads

(b) this IT-enablement stuff sounds exciting to a first-year MBA, not to us careworn veterans of the 'field': it will make no difference unless we crackdown on illegal, 'free' parking, unless pedestrian walkways and footpaths get built, unless penal municipal taxes on large private vehicles are imposed, and unless we start imposing positive AND negative incentives to use public transport.

The state of India's urban traffic hells have little to do with the law and much more to do with dysfunctional municipal and state governments that do not reform the police and that depreciate pedestrians, cyclists and bus-users and pander to owners of big and expensive four-wheelers.

We are only learning a small part of the REAL Singapore lesson if we only focus on laws and fines etc.

[thoma]

First, a personal wish. Can anything be done to revert back the blanket ban on sun-films to allow at the very least heat reduction, may be with the mildest of tints? It is actually a cruelty to leave motor users out in the Indian summer heat, A/C or not.

Next is to instill road discipline. We can adhere perfectly to foreign laws on a foreign land, but not here. There should be some way out of this.

[srh]

Can we please have a law which obligates local bodies, state governments & central governments to provide roads designed and built to requisite standards first? Badly designed and built pot holed roads are as big a reason for catastrophe