NEW DELHI, January 15: Twenty-eight persons have been killed by over-speeding buses in the city since the beginning of the new year. Many more have been injured. But speed governors continue to remain elusive whenever the police check the killer vehicles.On November 20 last, the Supreme Court had ordered all bus owners to fix speed governors in their vehicles. The order came two days after the Wazirabad school bus tragedy in which 30 children were drowned in the Yamuna.
Today, 56 days after the order, a chartered bus carrying office-goers overturned near Gol Dakhana. While the occupants say that the bus was speeding through the office-hour traffic - it does so every day, they claim - policemen say that they are yet to recover the speed governor.
The bus was travelling at nearly 50 km per hour, despite the Supreme Court stipulation that all heavy passenger vehicles were to ply at 40 km per hour and smaller vehicles at 60 km per hour.
Where are speed governors? The State Transport Authority today said
that orders have been placed for an electronic speed-checking device which should hit the market by March.
For the interim period, bus owners are required to fix a rod under the accelerator pedal which will prevent accelerating beyond 40 km per hour.
However, an official said that bus drivers shorten the length of the rod, and get away with over-speeding. The traffic police, on the other hand, say that even if buses are found with these makeshift speed governors during routine checks, it is difficult to estimate the speedometer limit.
However, speed governors were mandatory even before the Supreme Court order. The lack of one would have led to the permit of the bus being cancelled. The stipulation then was to fix a metal plate between the accelerator and the body of the bus. Drivers got away by decreasing the size of the accelerator pedal so that it would pass through the opening in the metal plate.
Last year the government introduced "interceptors". These are four Maruti Gypsies, each fixed with a
laser gun, a video camera, breath-analysers and pollution checking equipment.
The record in the nine months that the interceptors have been in operation, is hardly encouraging. By the STA's own admission, these interceptors hand out an average of 40 challans everyday to over-speeding vehicles. At least 28 lakh vehicles ply on the city's roads daily.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
