The Delhi Traffic Police said they have been conducting special drives to push people to wear seat belts. (Representative image/Express)Days after Tata Sons’ former chairman Cyrus Mistry died in a road accident in Maharashtra’s Palghar district, the Delhi Police took to Twitter on Tuesday to urge citizens to not ‘over-speed’ and always wear seatbelts inside a car.
“Don’t go fast. Fasten your seat belt. Doesn’t matter where you are sitting, front seats or back seats. Wear seat belts. Buckle up every single time!,” the Delhi Police tweet said, with the hashtag Road Safety and Delhi Police Cares.
The tweet came on a day when Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said seat belt alarms for those on rear seats will now be a permanent feature in all four-wheelers. “Because of the Cyrus incident, we have taken the decision that all cars will have to have the alarm for seat belts, even the rear ones. The order will be issued in the next few days,” Gadkari told the media.
According to Maharashtra Police, Mistry was sitting in the back seat of the car and was not wearing a seat belt.
Speaking with The Indian Express, a Delhi police official said that they have always been promoting wearing seat belts. “We have always been promoting and advising people to wear seat belts. People should be made aware of the risk involved in not wearing a seat belt along with the importance of following traffic rules,” said Special Commissioner of Police, Traffic, S S Yadav.
The Delhi Traffic Police said they have been conducting special drives to push people to wear seat belts, and one of the major challenges for authorities was to catch offenders on camera or at traffic posts.
Under Section 194B of the newly amended Motor Vehicles Act, whoever drives a motor vehicle without a safety belt or carries passengers without seat belts will be fined. The challan amount is up to Rs 1,000. A sub-section of the Act also states that it is compulsory to secure a child (age less than 14) with a safety belt. However, car drivers do not follow the rules.
“The law is there and it is very much applicable in Delhi. One should wear a seat belt while seated in a car. However, it is not easy to catch offenders. We have multiple surveillance and traffic cameras in the city but they cannot catch the glimpse of back seat occupants. Also, traffic personnel deployed on arterial roads and other junctions cannot stop every car and check for violations,” a senior traffic police officer in Delhi said.
Initial investigation into the Palghar accident on Sunday afternoon revealed that the Mercedes car was speeding when the accident took place. The car covered a distance of 20 km in just nine minutes after crossing the Charoti check post in Palghar district, 120 km away from Mumbai, a police officer said on Sunday night.