Ensure compliance of order on bicycle reflectors: Avon Cycles appeals to BIS

Chandigarh, February 10

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The Managing Director of Avon Cycles, Onkar Singh Pahwa, has appealed to the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) to enforce the compliance of quality control order on mandatory cycle reflectors to save cyclists from accidents.

The Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety directed the implementation of 10 mandatory reflectors as per ISO 6742-2 on new adult bicycles on September 1, 2016, to enhance the visibility of cyclists’ and protect their lives. Subsequently, a quality control order (QCO) under the BIS Act and regulation on the same was brought in place on July 1 last year to enforce the above direction in letter and spirit through the BIS.

Pahwa said, “Despite the QCO mechanism in place, a significant number of bicycle assemblers/ manufacturers and/or dealers are reportedly violating reflector compliance by resorting to affixing an inadequate number of reflectors, inferior quality of the reflector, invoicing kids instead of adult bicycles and recycling reflectors by dealers.” He added that it is impacting compliant vs non-compliant bicycle manufacturers thus distorting fair competition, and is also likely to underutilise new reflector capacity in India.

Pahwa said the MORTH GOI data confirms the deaths of more than 4,000 cyclists in road accidents every year in India, which is of great concern. Therefore, the mandatory reflectors measure is specifically meant to prevent such deaths, which involve mostly the underprivileged sections of society, he added.

“It is therefore requested that the BIS ensure enforcing bicycle reflector compliance in letter and spirit at a pan-India level at the reflector manufacturers, bicycle manufacturers/assemblers and dealers so that the objective of preventing accidents of cyclists is eventually achieved. This needs to be dealt with as an urgent matter for remedial concurrent actions in a mission mode,” he said.