Lack of effective monitoring and sustained enforcement to check overloading of autorickshaws and vans transporting students to schools has raised concern among residents.
As per the State government order, an autorickshaw can ferry a maximum of five children up to the age of 14 years excluding driver. If they are adult, the maximum limit is three passengers plus driver.
There are many restrictions for private vehicles to carry school children. They cannot ferry children without getting endorsement from the Transport department. However, many autorickshaws blatantly flout the rules.
In the driver’s seat
It is common to see autorickshaws plying on roads during peak hours carrying even up to 10 children. Some drivers accommodate children on their seats in the front too. Without realising the danger, the children travel by sitting at the edge of the driver’s seat.
Most of the autorickshaws ply on roads with school bags and lunch boxes hanging and precariously protruding out of the vehicles, much to the concern of other motorists.
According to statistics available with the Transport department, there are about 3,000 autorickshaws in Tiruchi district. Of them, around 1,500 ply in Tiruchi city. Nearly 70% of them ferry school children in the morning and evening. Several of them carry more than 10 children than the permitted number.
Some auto drivers, who want to cash on the demand during peak hours, complete the trip as quickly as possible from one school in order to ferry children from other schools within a short span of time, thereby causing room for rash driving. The brazen violation of safety rules by many drivers is a common sight near most of the popular schools in Tiruchi city, for instance.
Similarly, several vans also ply on roads with school children without getting endorsement with the concerned authorities. Several of them ferry children more than the permitted number.
Consumer activists cite lack of enforcement by Transport and Police departments as the main reason for severe violation of safety rules by auto rickshaws and private vehicles.
“The authorities tend to take action against the violators only after the accidents. There is no sustained effort to bring the violators to book,” says H. Ghouse Baig, a consumer activist in Tiruchi.
K. Uma Sakthi, Deputy Transport Commissioner, Tiruchi, told The Hindu that the action was being taken against the violators regularly.
About 40 cases were booked against autorickshaw owners during the last two months. Ten of them were for overloading. Twenty autorickshaws were impounded on the charges of various violations, he said.
