To improve safety and reduce accidents of on-road cyclists, Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari on Thursday asked his Consumer Affairs counterpart Ram Vilas Paswan to update norms pertaining to bicycles and make application of reflective tapes mandatory.
In his letter to Paswan, Gadkari has stressed the need for fixing retro reflective tapes on certain parts of the bicycles to make them visible at night times. “Bicycle users are among the most vulnerable road users, susceptible to high rate of road accidents,” said Gadkari in his letter.
“In the year 2012 alone, about 6,600 cyclists were killed in road accidents. Poor visibility of bicycle riders due to lack of proper reflective devices installed on bicycles, is major reason for the high rate of accidents with motorised vehicles,” he said.
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has been working closely with Department of Consumer affairs and Bureau of Indian standards to improve safety of bicycles and ensuring its compliance in the manufacturing of bicycles and getting it mandated through quality control order.
The Ministry of Roads has also provided the quality standard for retro-reflective tapes for use in automobiles.
“The campaign to fix reflective tapes on bicycles free of cost for easy spotting of cyclists by drivers of other vehicles at night is the joint initiative of the International Road Federation (IRF), and Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), Government of India is already on in Delhi and likely to be taken to other major cities including Chandigarh, ludhiana, Ahmedabad, Bangal-ore and Kochi,” said KK Kapila, Chairman, International Road Federation (IRF), a global body working for better roads.