High Court for speed governors in all vehicles

By Our Staff Reporter

Guwahati, Oct 8: A division bench of the Gauhati High Court comprising of Chief Justice (acting) K. Sreedhar Rao and Justice PK Saikia has asked the Central government to direct its testing agencies to set up units at all the automobile manufacturing centers in order to ensure that safety tests are conducted in every vehicle before these are rolled out of the factory for sale.

The court was hearing a PIL which stated that the provisions of Section 126-A of the Rules of 1989 mandate that apart from the prototype vehicle, every vehicle manufactured has to undergo the mandatory tests. Rule 126 has notified the agencies which should test and certify the compliance of the requirements of the law.

“It appears to be an easy procedure to check every vehicle manufactured at the manufacturing units before it rolls out of the factory. Otherwise, taking every vehicle manufactured to the testing agencies situated at different places may not be a viable proposition for effective implementation of the rules,” the bench observed.

In the PIL, the court also took cognizance of the “vires” of Rule 118 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 which imposes installation of speed governors in certain category of vehicles and excludes all other types of motor vehicles.

“The object of Rule 118 is to impose the speed limit of the vehicles. In so far as the vehicles in which speed governors are made mandatory, the movement of the vehicles within the speed limit prescribed would be ensured. However, for the excluded category of vehicles, discretion is given to the driver to maintain the speed limits while driving. This discretion is always breached, and over-speeding has been a mece and a major factor for the accidents that occur,” the court observed.

The bench observed that “it is desirable that the four-wheelers and the two-wheelers should also have inbuilt mechanical regulators for ensuring compliance of the prescribed speed limits on the highways and elsewhere, which is an imminent need for preventing the accidents caused due to over-speed driving and for human safety”.