Road ministry issues draft rules for mandatory rear seat belt alarms
- Not wearing seatbelts in a car is one of the major reasons for critical injuries and deaths of rear seat occupants across India.
Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has issued draft rules to make it mandatory for car makers to install an alarm system meant for the rear seat belts. MoRTH has invited public opinion on the same. The notification says that the last date for public comments on draft rules is October 5.
Also Read : Crackdown for not wearing rear seat belts continue in Delhi
The Indian government has been considering the enforcement of the use of rear seatbelts after the death of Cyrus Mistry, the former chairman of Tata Sons, in a car crash recently. Mistry was sitting in the rear seat of a luxury SUV and did not have his seat belt on. This was cited as the reason behind the fatal injury of the former Tata Sons chairman.
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India is one of the top countries with an alarmingly high number of deaths and critical injuries due to road accidents every year. Lakhs of people die every year due to road accidents. Few more lakh people get critically injured or handicapped due to road accidents across India every year. While the number of road accidents majorly involves the two-wheelers, the number of four-wheelers involved in road crashes, too, is not very low.
While there is a host of steps being taken by the government in an attempt to reduce the number of accidents and related death and injuries, user awareness is still a long way to go. According to World Bank's statement last year, in India, one person dies every four minutes in road accidents.
When it comes to safety protocols. wearing seatbelts is mandatory for all occupants in a car in India. However, many occupants flout these protocols, and especially the passengers at the back of the cars seldom do that. Enforcement to curb that, too, is very weak.
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