Driving Change: Government Prioritises Safety With Mandatory 'Bus Body Code' To Prevent Road Accidents

The central government is working on the introduction of advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) as a safety feature in vehicles to prevent crashes and better driver behaviour, Union Road Transport Secretary Anurag Jain said on Tuesday.

He said the government will also soon notify the 'bus body code', which will be mandatory for buses for the safety of passengers.

Speaking at a road safety event organised by industry body Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Jain said, “there has been good progress in vehicle safety in the country, from fitment of airbags to seatbelt and speeding alarm system in case, anti-lock braking system (ABS) in motorcycles. The work is in progress so far ADAS is concerned. We should hopefully have this soon and this should help using technology to improve driver behaviour and reduce accidents.”

Currently, one component of this ADAS system — electronic stability control (ESC) — is under implementation. Officials said around 35 per cent of the cars are already coming with the ESC even as it’s not mandatory. For buses this has been made mandatory from last April.

"We have issued the draft norm for another component of ADAS, advanced emergency braking system (AEBS), and it’s in the final stage. The AEBS will get activated automatically, if any object come in front of a vehicle fitted with this system. This will be most helpful in dense fog conditions when it’s impossible for our eyes to detect an object,” said a senior Transport Ministry official.

As per the proposed norm, the AEBS will get activated only when a vehicle equipped with it is speeding at 50 kmph or above.

To begin with, the AEBS will be made an optional feature in buses and trucks.

Speaking at the conference, Union Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said road safety should be considered the most important while making the detailed project reports.

“Road engineering is very important...The quality of the DPRs is so bad… I feel basically the engineers are responsible for road accidents, but people always blame the drivers. So the main problem is road engineering,” he said.