The Transport Department has asked the State Transport Commissioner and State Police Chief to ensure that pillion riders travelling in two-wheelers in the State wear the helmets and those travelling in vehicles having seat belts wear that gadget as directed by the Supreme Court.
K.R. Jyothilal, Principal Secretary, Transport, in a letter to the State Transport Commissioner and the State Police Chief, said seat belts in the vehicles having the seat belts and helmets for pillion riders were not compiled with in Kerala fully.
“No insurance company will be able to pay any compensation to those who violate the above rules, as the Supreme Court has made it very clear that these are violations of the Rules of the Road,”, he said.
The Principal Secretary has asked the head of the two law enforcing agencies to ‘strictly check’ the violations by the enforcement team of the Motor Vehicles Department and the police.
The directive comes at a time when the road accidents involving the two-wheelers were rising at an alarming rate in the State. In 2018, 868 occupants of cars lost their lives and 1,382 travelling in motorcycles were killed in road accidents in the State. In the January-December period last year, 4,303 deaths and injuries to 45,458 persons were reported in the 40,181 road accidents.
With the directive from the Transport Department, the onus would be on the MVD and the police to book the erring motorists. The High Court of Kerala had in 2015 ordered that both the driver and pillion riders would have to wear helmets. The court verdict was on an appeal given by State against the petition of an activist Basil Attippetty seeking the rule for making helmet mandatory for pillion riders as per Section 129 of the Motor Vehicles Act 1988 that mandates helmet for both riders.
