Road Transport Bill, 2018 falls short

The cabinet has given final approval to the proposed Road Transport Bill, 2018. There are some good measures in the proposed act like minimum educational qualification (Grade 8) and minimum age (21 years) to get a professional driver license, and introduction of a 12-point system which would lead to ultimately cancellation of license for violation of law. But looked in totality, the proposed bill fails to meet the expectations of all the stakeholders.

The draft bill has drawn flak from road safety experts to activists for good reasons. Although maximum punishment for causing death due to reckless driving has been increased from three years to five, it falls far short of the 10 years that campaigners had been demanding. The rationale for fixing a five-year jail term defeats our comprehension. Similar or lesser offences than "death by reckless driving" carry greater punishment. For example, robbery on highways at night carries a maximum 14 years and defamation on social media a minimum of seven years—as if one's life is less important than one's reputation. Even the High Court's verdict in 2014, that seven years' jail term was "insufficient" for a driver causing death by reckless driving, has been ignored.

The purpose of a law and the punishment therein for breach of that is to make citizens' life comfortable and safe and deter transgression of the law. We are afraid the proposed law would fail to do that. By going easy on reckless driving, the whole purpose of introducing a strict regime will be defeated. We had been waiting for long for a law that would bring some semblance of order in the transport sector by imposing strictest punishment for death due to careless and irresponsible driving. The proposed road transport bill dismays us.