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Hazardous RTVs as School Transport
By Maxwell Pereira
mfjpkamath@gmail.com
How
apathetic can the Indian parent get - especially the Delhi one
- in so far as his concern for the physical safety of minor off-springs
is concerned, and his attitude to the hazardous nature of school
transport that is used for them. This of course is not of much
concern to the rich and the elite whose kids use their own chauffeur
driven or self-driven cars. It is of the rest I am writing about
- of the poorer lot who are too busy making ends meet to be really
bothered… always taking recourse to their otherwise helpless state;
and of the vast middle rung who are far too pre-occupied in climbing
the ladder to be devoting time and energy to this crucial issue.
Really! Who hasn't seen the cycle-rickshaws and the TSRs with
school bags hanging out of every nook and crevice, into which
are loaded tiny-tots and other children - jam packed worse than
sardines in a can! And the wriggling 'Mini's or 'Omni's and the
crazy RTVs and the Har-Bari that worm in and out of all colonies
driven dangerously by fly-by-night operators with suspect credentials!
Like the extreme people we are, it is only when calamity or tragedy
strikes that we come out on the streets to beat our breasts, and
cry hoarse blaming whosoever it is that one is capable of pointing
fingers at! But by then, it is already too late!
Hazardous school transport is an area also focused on specially
by Delhi Traffic police over the years, with successive heads
in charge of traffic taking pains to issue suitable safety warnings
to parents of school going children; also by corresponding with
principals and headmasters to be alive to and not ignore the dangerous
and unsafe manner in which their pupils are ferried to and from
the school; and by drawing the attention of concerned authorities
to the existing state of affairs for remedial steps in time… lest
the growing loss of human life and especially the snuffing out
of tender children in their prime, becomes the order of the day.
While all this is in general about school transport, coming specifically
to RTVs in the context of the accident on this November 28 involving
one such in which school children were being ferried:
It was in September 2002 that as the Traffic Chief for Delhi,
I wrote to the then Commissioner cum Secretary Transport in the
Delhi Government, drawing her attention to the hazardous nature
of the RTVs. Up to August end that year 20 RTVs were involved
in road accidents due to overturning alone, in which seven people
lost their lives and 61 others were injured. Delhi Traffic Police
had conducted a preliminary assessment of the problem and analyzed
these accidents - coming up with the conclusion that in addition
to driver behaviour there could also be something wrong with the
very design and mechanical configuration of the RTV.
That the vehicle appeared to be precariously balancing on stilts
that affected its road grip while negotiating roadbends, curvatures
and turns; and especially when loaded with passengers, its centre
of gravity at speeds exceeding 40kmph tended to be unstable, resulting
in its toppling over on its side.
Since these were only observations and conclusions of traffic
managers then not backed up by any workshop scientific engineering
or mechanical parameters, the Transport Authority (TA) was requested
to commission a regular study through a competent agency by going
into the safety aspects of the design vis a vis the mechanical
and dynamic parameters and configuration of the vehicle. In the
interregnum, the policy of registering more RTVs was asked to
be reviewed.
The TA was addressed again when former Secretary to Government
of India Arvind Verma wrote to me deploring the manner in which
RTVs were run on Delhi roads, demanding that strong, urgent and
effective action be taken to rein in and tame them down. Because
of their smaller size, and better capability and manoeuvrability
to weave through traffic, he likened their potential for 'terrorism'
very high - and desired strong steps to curb their undesirable
habits, practices, tendencies and the "couldn't-care-a-damn" approach.
And again the TA got informed, when a harassed parent Shefali
Chaturvedi of the Planning Commission, paranoid with fear for
her child's safety complained about the unsafe and dangerous conditions
with which school children were being ferried in RTVs.
Three
years down the line, one learns that the safety study in respect
of RTVs entrusted by Delhi Government to IIT Delhi is yet to see
the light of day. One reads though in the newspapers the quotes
attributed to members of the team which was doing the study -
reiterating the very doubts the Traffic Police had complained
about and addressed the TA with, right in the beginning: That
because the vehicles' centre of gravity was high and width not
enough, they tend to 'roll-over' at high speeds. This, against
the claim that these vehicles have been declared fit and safe
by Pune's Automobile Research Association of India (ARAD).
Till October this year, RTVs alone have been involved in 35 fatal
accidents in Delhi in which as many people have died. Many more
have died in 2003 and 2004, and since the time Traffic Police
wrote to the Transport Authority not to register more RTVs or
issue those permits to ply on Delhi roads. The deaths of how many
more does the Administration want on its hands, before contemplating
any concrete action? Why are our courts, even the Apex court,
silent on the issue… when guidelines framed by the Supreme Court
in respect of school transport are being violated with impunity!?
900 words 05.12.2005:Copy
Right © Maxwell Pereira: 3725 Sec-23, Gurgaon-122002. You
can interact with the author at http://
www.maxwellperira.com and maxpk@vsnl.com
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