Law on truck drivers’ working hours soon

Union Road and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari has done a tremendous job in building the world-class road infrastructure across the country. However, he is also worried about the record number of road accidents occurring and the number of lives that are lost.

New Delhi, Jan 20: India has one of the highest numbers of road accidents wherein thousands of people lose their life and more people get injured. Most of the time road accidents happen due to fatigue and long working hours of truck drivers. To address the issue of long working hours among truck drivers, the Modi government is mulling a plan to bring a new law.

Talking about the requirement for the new to reduce working hours of truck drivers, Union Road Transport and Highway Minister Nitin Gadkari said that his government will soon bring law. The law, according to him, would determine working hours for truck drivers. The major goal of the law is to reduce the number of accidents by more than 50% and save lives and livelihood of people.

According to the government data from the year 2021, there were 4,12,432 unfortunate incidents of road accidents. These road accidents claimed the lives of 1, 53,972 people and caused injuries to 3, 84,448 persons. This is quite alarming given the situation that not all the victims in road accidents are driving, in fact, most of the time drivers are safe and ordinary people are the victims.

Reducing traffic fatalities and injuries

Road and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari has done a tremendous job in building the world-class road infrastructure; however, he is also worried about the record number of road accidents and the lives that are lost. In his talk that happened on the "Sadak Suraksha Abhiyan" outreach project, the minister admitted that this is quite unfortunate and his ministry is taking sincere steps to reduce road accidents.

From road safety engineering to enforcement, education and emergency care, every measure is being taken to save lives. Nonetheless, he is also committed to bring a law that would determine the working hours of truck drivers. Most often the drivers working for long hours lose concentration and focus and due to tiredness also lose control that causes road accidents.

The studies have shown that the majority of the fatal victims in road accidents belong to the 18-45 years of age group which also happens to be the most productive age group. Therefore, it is not just a loss of life but losing the main earner of the family. Moreover, more than 80% victims are male road users which again puts burden on the families as their only bread-earner is dead.