New MV Act and Penalties for Not Wearing Seatbelts

The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) MV Act enforced in 2019 has impacted hard to most of the LTV riders, including two-wheelers and car users. Not wearing seatbelt in a car is one of the penalties levied. However, the rule to wear seatbelts should also be enforced to all categories of HTVs and public transport buses operating in various metropolitan cities. As the crew of the public transport buses have been entrusted to drive safely by not endangering the lives of passengers, it is now obvious that the drivers of public transport buses wear seatbelts and drive in the best interest of passengers' safety.

The government should urgently insist public transport corporations across the country to conduct audit of its buses operating in metros like Chennai, Hyderabad, New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Mysuru etc., and across BRTS network in Ahmedabad, Hubballi etc. The audit should consist of checking seatbelt availability for the safety of bus crew and thus ensure its strict adherence accordingly.

Further there is an urgent need to raise awareness to drive safely while wearing a seatbelt in buses and HTVs alike including public transport and BRTS buses. Hence the government should strive to ensure that the crew members driving buses within city, inter-city, intra city, BRTS network and airport shuttle routes are made to wear the seatbelts mandatorily and drive the vehicle. The move to enforce mandatory seatbelts rule for the bus drivers will help ensure enhanced passenger safety along with complying to road safety regulations and personal well being accordingly.

Varun Dambal,

Bangalore.

Also Read: New MV Act should be Implemented in State at the Earliest