Truck operators oppose speed governors

SOLAN: All-Himachal Truck Operators Federation is opposing the decision to fit speed governors to regulate the speed of vehicle in heavy commercial vehicles on the plea that more power was required in the hilly area to ply a commercial vehicle carrying load and this device was not a sound option for the hills.

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, December 13

All-Himachal Truck Operators Federation is opposing the decision to fit speed governors to regulate the speed of vehicle in heavy commercial vehicles on the plea that more power was required in the hilly area to ply a commercial vehicle carrying load and this device was not a sound option for the hills.

The federation’s general secretary Naresh Gupta, while advocating the need for conducting a trial of this speed regulating device in the passenger commercial vehicles (PCV), said its successful trial in the PCVs should pave the way for its use in the heavy commercial vehicles which carry tonnes of weight.

The Ministry of Road and Surface Transport had in April 2015 made it compulsory for all commercial vehicles to have speed governors. This norm has been made applicable for the old as well as the new commercial vehicles and it is supposed to bring down the number of deaths in road accidents. Speed governor is a device which measures and regulates the speed of a vehicle. Though such devices were supposed to be fitted by April 2016 the state has failed to implement it till now.

Gupta said this system should be tried first in the PCVs only which require more safety and load carried is also less in comparison to the goods vehicle. He said the commercial vehicles carrying goods require more power in the hilly areas and the speed of such vehicles is also very less and its varies between 10 and 20 km and 20 to 40 km per hour. He said only its successful trial in the PCVs should pave the way for their installation in heavy commercial vehicles.

The federation has also demanded that the vehicle owner should be at liberty to buy the product from the open market at a competitive price so that the transport industry was not exploited under the banner of monopolistic attitude as the Transport Department was floating tenders to authorise a dealer for procuring such devices. It was known that the Transport Department was in the process of inviting tenders to empanel manufacturers of such devices.

As many as 29,555 accidents were reported in Himachal in the last 10 years till 2015 in which 5,612 people had lost their lives and 26,580 people had been injured.

While the plea of excluding trucks plying in the hilly areas from speed governors was being echoed by the federation, a large number of accidents were reported in the state’s industrial hub of Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh due to reckless driving by the trucks every year.

State Transport Authority Vinay Singh said the Directorate of Transport was in the process of getting these devices fitted in the commercial vehicles. There were about 30,000 to 35,000 trucks plying in the various industrial areas of the state, including BBN, Kala Amb, Paonta Sahib, Parwanoo, Darlaghat, etc.