To prevent accidents due to poor visibility on the rural road stretches, Union Rural Development Ministry has asked State Governments to make fixing of retro reflective tapes mandatory on rural modes of transport such as bullock carts and handcarts.
The Government is already working on the ways to make it compulsory for bicycle manufacturers to equip the non-motorised vehicle equipped with proper reflective device. “Non-motorized traffic such as bicycles, bullock carts forms a major traffic population on rural roads. While most of these non-motorized modes of transport lack the reflective devices, accidents are caused due to poor visibility on these road stretches,” said a senior official from the Rural Development Ministry.
He said that States had been asked to consider making it mandatory for rural modes of transport including bullock-carts, hand-carts or even bicycles to fix retro reflective tapes on the rear side of the vehicles during manufacturing stage itself.
The official explained that vehicles plying on roads with absence of tail lamps and without reflective tapes are major cause of road accidents during night hours. It is also witnessed that parking of heavy vehicles on road-side without proper reflectors leading to fatal accidents.
“Moreover, animals drawing these carts also get injured in such mishaps in the absence of reflective tapes in the vehicles,” he added. The National Rural Roads Development Agency (NRRDA) of the Ministry which oversee the rural road construction has also asked the State Governments to institute regulations on the issue, if the need be, to mandate that reflective devices are installed on these non-motorized transportations at the time of its assembly itself.
The official noted that recently the Transport Ministry has also been working to ensure accidents due to bicycles are curbed as the vehicle users happen to be one of the most vulnerable on the roads.
Statistics have revealed that children and youth who are the maximum users of bicycles are most vulnerable to accidents. More than 6,600 cyclists lost their lives in 2012 due to lack of visibility, almost a third of them in the age group of 15 to 24, according to the government data.