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Old 15th September 2021, 11:59   #16
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Re: Proposal to increase highway speeds to 120 kmph dismissed

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Originally Posted by sdp1975 View Post
Since the ruling was pronounced by the Madras HC, does it apply only to Tamil Nadu or to all of India ?
Quote:
Originally Posted by RedTerrano View Post
Does the MHC writ even run outside TN?
Can any legal eagle please clarify?
High Court verdicts have a pan-India jurisdiction.
Judicial overreach is becoming an increasing phenomenon with each passing day. The day isn't far when the honourable black robes start running the day-to-day affairs of the executive branch.

Coming to the verdict, though 120 kmh may still be unrealistic for a lot of cars sold in the country and even conditions on our roads are not equipped to handle such speeds, it's too much of a stretch for a court to restrict speeds on all highways. At the end of a day, there will always be some people who drive like maniacs, but a lot of us are responsible citizens who know when to speed and when not to.
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Old 15th September 2021, 13:48   #17
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Re: Proposal to increase highway speeds to 120 kmph dismissed

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Originally Posted by sdp1975 View Post
Since the ruling was pronounced by the Madras HC, does it apply only to Tamil Nadu or to all of India ?
Territorial jurisdiction of the High Court is limited to the State/UT where it is operating.

My understanding is that, this judgement concerns to the State of Tamil Nadu Alone.
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Old 15th September 2021, 15:39   #18
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Re: Proposal to increase highway speeds to 120 kmph dismissed

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Originally Posted by abhishek46 View Post
Territorial jurisdiction of the High Court is limited to the State/UT where it is operating.

My understanding is that, this judgement concerns to the State of Tamil Nadu Alone.
No, HC judgements have pan-India application as rulings and cease to be material if only a higher bench of the same or another HC rules otherwise, or the orders are overturned by the SC. HC rulings / judgements are not limited by state.

On this matter, I agree with forum members that 120kmph is simply untenable even with vastly better cars and build quality of national/state highways - precisely for the reason the MHC correctly reasoned - a vast majority of road users are simply not compliant with or refuse to follow or don't care about correct road traffic behavior (likely all three in some ratio). Even at the current speed limits our roads are among the most dangerous in the world.

As another member has observed - change is evolutionary, not revolutionary.
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Old 15th September 2021, 16:11   #19
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Re: Proposal to increase highway speeds to 120 kmph dismissed

Central Govt vs Court matters aside, I see some even bigger challenges on the subject:

1. Quality/safety/handling/braking of most cars on road.
2. Quality of roads itself.
3. Lack of any formal driving teaching infrastructure and discipline. Most of us have learnt to drive from our dad/uncle/bhaiya etc and not all would have been good drivers themselves to start with. Result- We have a major percentage of unskilled drivers on road today.
4. Highways are perfect places to take stroll- both by cattle and people. Heck, in some places, I have seen kids playing as well. Have rarely seen fencing along the highways.
5. Overloading. No matter how much load a vehicle is carrying, there is always a driver who sees it as a superman pushing it hard.

In my opinion, we are not yet ready for 120KMPH limit, except may be for a few sections. Most good highways are good for 80-100 KMPH at the max though.
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Old 15th September 2021, 16:51   #20
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Re: Proposal to increase highway speeds to 120 kmph dismissed

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The court did not agree with the reasoning, saying :

there was no improvement in compliance of the road safety rules by the motorists.

When speeding was a major cause for road accidents, it is not known as to how the improvement in road infrastructure and engine technology would reduce accidents.
Few noob questions from my side in this crucial debate :
  • Isn't it more of a compliance/ enforcement/ sensibility issue than the speed limit issue ?
  • If major cause of road accidents is overspeeding, then how lowering the limits is going to help? If someone has decided to drive insanely, no limit is going to stop that person.
  • Those who want to speed/ drag race, are going to continue whether its 50kmph city road or 120kmph expressway.
  • 120kmph limit is a wish on expressways. Even now, how many highways actually have limits more than 90kmph ? How many city roads have more than 50kmph ? So, what HC is trying to achieve ?
  • Infact, putting ridiculously low speeds on a 4/6 lane divided road is bigger issue. IIRC, UER-II road adjacent to IGIA had 50kmph as limit, with strategically placed speed trap vehicle and smiling cops waiting with open arms; ready to extract fine for even 52kmph on this multi-lane divided road.

On the legal side (I am not a lawyer) :
  • Some of us are siding with judiciary for this order, which is clearly an over-reach. When Courts/ NGT (quasi-judicial) issue order for banning sunfilms/ diesels etc. we cry foul for the same over-reach and question their technical competence.
  • I am not sure if the appellant had even pleaded for this direction. More important for judiciary would be to look internally for speeding up the cases at its disposal. This case itself took almost 8years to get verdict from HC. Many more years to go for final settlement till SC.
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Old 15th September 2021, 16:56   #21
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Re: Proposal to increase highway speeds to 120 kmph dismissed

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Originally Posted by whitewing View Post
The court asked the Govt to justify the increase in speed limit, the Govt justified it. The court did not agree with the reasoning
Per this statement, 60% of the roads other than highways cannot be justified to be named as ROADS. So, ideally courts should pass the judgement that vehicles shall not be driven on those 60% of the paths that are not justified to be considered "Roads".

Last edited by gkveda : 15th September 2021 at 16:58.
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Old 15th September 2021, 18:12   #22
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Re: Proposal to increase highway speeds to 120 kmph dismissed

High Court decisions are a directive. It will apply to the state of Tamil Nadu and also to all parts of India, since the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has been a respondent to defend it's pan Indian applicability.

Supreme Court decisions are law of the land.

Coming to the speed limit of 120 kmph as decided by the MoRTH earlier, the Minister talks about the enormous outgo and drain of foreign exchange through the massive oil import bills. India's oil import bill in FY20 and FY19 was $101.4 billion and $111.9 billion, respectively. ( US $ 1 billion = Rs 7350 crores).

To reduce the oil imports the Minister wants:-

- The Minister is getting 10 % ethanol blended to our petrol at the cost of the older, non-ethanol compliant car and bike engines.

- Switch over to EV's within 2030/2035 (sweeping statements retracted in the next few days after these were uttered) to save foreign exchange without the requisite infrastructure.

- Hydrogen cell fuel vehicles being thought of.

- Flexi fuel cars

And we all are aware of the abnormally high fuel consumption of all ICE engines above speeds of 80 kmph, which perhaps the Minister and the Babus were not aware of while deciding such a 120 kmph speed limit.

I am not saying that the judiciary is very well aware about the abnormal fuel consumption of cars moving at high speeds.

But are our roads OK to allow such speeds ? Even with the lower speed limits, we have gruesome accidents on our highways and expressways with a great alacrity, where daredevil speeds on cars with NCAP safety ratings of 0-2 are attempted by oxymorons, some of them killing themselves and even their innocent occupants.

Last edited by anjan_c2007 : 15th September 2021 at 18:14.
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Old 15th September 2021, 18:15   #23
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Re: Proposal to increase highway speeds to 120 kmph dismissed

Quote:
Originally Posted by anjan_c2007 View Post
But are our roads OK to allow such speeds ? Even with the lower speed limits, we have gruesome accidents on our highways and expressways, where daredevil speeds on cars with NCAP safety ratings of 0-2 are attempted by oxymorons, some of them killing themselves and even their innocent occupants.
These speeds wouldn't be applicable to all roads. This is the maximum allowable i.e this 120 kmph speed limit would mostly apply to the access controlled expressways only which I feel is perfectly fine.

120 is not a lot for these expressways IMHO.

Regarding the NCAP, the government is working on that too albeit the auto industry is lobbying hard against that which is slowing things down.

Last edited by Shreyas Agarwal : 15th September 2021 at 18:18.
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Old 15th September 2021, 18:40   #24
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Re: Proposal to increase highway speeds to 120 kmph dismissed

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Originally Posted by GTO View Post
While I don't like the courts interfering in such matters, I will agree that India isn't quite ready for 120 kmph cruising just yet. A majority of the budget cars on our roads are more adept for cruising at 80 - 100 kmph, rather than 120 kmph. Plus, the kind of roads we have and the unexpected curveballs we encounter make 100 kmph cruising far safer. More than anything, driving licences are handed out to any 18+ year old with a pulse, so that quality & skill simply isn't there.
Totally agree with this. And not to mention pedestrians and domesticated animals jumping in front of your car on the highway. Also, the truckers and local 2 wheelers who rides on the opposite side of the highway just because they don't want to ride 500 meters to take a U turn.
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Old 15th September 2021, 18:46   #25
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Re: Proposal to increase highway speeds to 120 kmph dismissed

120 KPH (or 75 MPH) is a lot, even on access controlled highways, because we never know where a surprise pothole or an improperly aligned concrete slab would peek-a-boo without warning. There could also be some objects littered on the road, or a casually mis-aligned concrete block of the median. Further, tires heat up exponentially at that speed especially on concrete pavements, posing a risk.

Another issue is that most "revv-unhappy" diesel engines with 5 gears would hover around 2700-3000 rpm to achieve that speed, which can prevent the driver from hearing one or two critical sounds from the car which could otherwise warn him. Not to mention some people might increase the music volume to contain the high engine noise, which further isolates the driver from what the car is going through.

Such high speeds are feasible only for a short 4-5 kms stretch perhaps, where visibility is high (like the Kunigal bypass or Namakkal bypass here in South) and there are no unknowns. Hyderabad ORR is another example, with 4 lanes, but because of the high width, sometimes it affects discipline especially if lanes are not properly marked.

So I'd go with the Court on this one, though I completely agree that judicial overreach is slowly getting long in the tooth.
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Old 15th September 2021, 18:50   #26
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Re: Proposal to increase highway speeds to 120 kmph dismissed

The executive needs to tell the judiciary to clear it's own massive backlog of cases, before wantonly hijacking the prerogative of the executive branch.
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Old 15th September 2021, 18:53   #27
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Re: Proposal to increase highway speeds to 120 kmph dismissed

Quote:
Originally Posted by gkveda View Post
Per this statement, 60% of the roads other than highways cannot be justified to be named as ROADS. So, ideally courts should pass the judgement that vehicles shall not be driven on those 60% of the paths that are not justified to be considered "Roads".
True , and in the 40% that qualify as roads - the courts should be asking stoppage of motor vehicles because there has been (quoting the ruling) "no improvement in compliance of the road safety rules by the motorists. ".
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Old 15th September 2021, 19:20   #28
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Re: Proposal to increase highway speeds to 120 kmph dismissed

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Originally Posted by RedTerrano View Post
Wait what?
Madras high court is able to override the Central Govt??
The rules are applied as per local conditions. So the police in each area will always set the speed limits as per conditions at that place.

Madras HC ruling in this case will be applicable to TN. Other states dont have to adhere to that, since MoRTH has mentioned upper limit as 120. The states can go upto that.
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Old 16th September 2021, 20:38   #29
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Madras High Court cuts down on highway speed limit

Madras high court says no to speed limit of 120 kmph, says centre should limit speed to 80 kmph. It also says cars should be restricted to speeds below speed limit. This is a bit of a damper coming on top of the recent poll where Tamil nadu roads were voted the best in India.

https://auto.hindustantimes.com/auto...686153108.html

I could not find this anywhere here. Mods, please move this to the appropriate thread.
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Old 16th September 2021, 20:55   #30
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Re: Madras High Court cuts down on highway speed limit

Courts in India are basically bullies. 4 crores cases pending and still they behave more like legislatures than courts.

"the drivers still lack compliance with the road safety rules and there's no improvement in that sense"

Oh! How the milords behave. They have to become our guardian angel. What will we do without their opinions. PIL factories are big nuisance and road block to our advancement. People file PIL because somebody they disn't agree with was planting trees across river to prevent soil erosion. Every government decision here has to go pass through the courts. It's like we don't have legislature but only milords legislature.

"this court invoking Article 226 of the Constitution, suo motu, in public interest, passed this judgment," the bench added."

The milords don't understand the difference between over speeding and speed limit increase. Its like they didn't even read the report of transport ministry and ruled on prejudice.
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