Three-fourth of of private vehicles not insured: SC panel

More than 75 percent of privately owned vehicles including two wheelers do not have insurance cover, said a committee headed by former Supreme Court judge K.S.Radhakrishnan on implementation of various laws relating to road safety, describing the situation as "alarming".

Asking the government identify these vehicles, Justice Radhakrishnan on Friday said that this came to surface during the committee's interaction with the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority.

In most of the cases, the insurance was not renewed after lapsing, he said.

According to the panel, 82 percent of the total vehicles in the country are privately owned and out of this 72 to 73 percent are two-wheelers and 10-12 percent are cars.

The panel, which also included former surface transport secretary S. Sunder and Central Road Research Institute's former chief scientist Nisha Mittale was interacting with media on its work in last one year.

The committee, mandated to "measure and monitor" the implementation of various laws relating to road safety in each state and by different ministries, department and agencies and starting its work on May 15, 2014, has made 13 recommendations covering various aspects of implementation of road safety and related laws including establishing road safety fund, removing encroachments on pedestrian paths and making liquor shops out of sight from national and state highways.

The committee has given time till June 30 to comply with these directions and thereafter it would review their implementations and issue more directions.

The core of the road safety is that people should identify themselves with the problem, Justice Radhakrishnan said, because what has happened to an accident victim today can happen to anyone in future as no one is immune from violation of road safety laws.

Saying that Chandigarh could qualify being "good" on road safety norms, he regretted at the level of ignorance about the term "black spot" Or "Road Safety Audit" amongst the agencies tasked with the implementation of road safety laws.

Pointing out that there was a huge mismatch between the number of vehicles and the traffic police personnel to enforce the road safety laws, Justice Radhakrishan said: "Number of vehicles are increasing, human being are increasing but the traffic police in the states in just one percent or even less of the total police force."

Noting the level of disregard, Dr. Mittal said that the current decade is a "Road Safety Decade" but half the time has already passed with nothing happening.

Claiming road safety is not on the government's agenda, she said that during "deliberations, their (officials) approach is positive but noting is being done for the fear of annoying the vote bank".

Meanwhile, Sunder said: "It is the responsibility of the state to find out which vehicle was involved in the hit and run accident and not been able to do so is its failure of the state."

He also said that the government must bear the responsibility of providing medical care to such victims.