Motor Vehicle Act: Hefty penalties are fine but what about these old laws, Mr Gadkari?

The Cabinet on Wednesday approved the Motor Vehicle (Amendment) Bill 2016. The amendment which aims to improve the road safety in the country was approved by the cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

While the amendment once implemented will introduce several steep penalties for breaking the laws of the road, it has however there are still several archaic laws from the Motor Vehicle Act 1988 which are still present and not implemented in reality.

Some of these include Section 177A rules of road regulation violation for which the fine has now been increased to Rs 500 from Rs 100 earlier and Overloading (Section 194) fine Rs 20,000 from Rs 2,000 earlier.
 

Some offences under law but not practised include -

• Owner of a motor vehicle permitted any person to drive his/her vehicle – fine of Rs 1,000

• Wilfully with holding information or giving information - fine of Rs 500

• Which he knows to be false or which he does not believed it to be true – fine of Rs 100

• Unauthorized entry into a vehicle and tampering with brake and other parts – Rs 100

• Using his/her cab for furtherance of prostitution or procure prostitutes or for any kind of smuggling – fine of Rs 100 on first offence and Rs 300 on second offence

• Carrying persons on the top of a vehicle in dangerous conditions – Rs 100 on every person for first offence, Rs 300 for second offence.

• No overtaking (Section 6RR/177 MVA) – Rs 100

• Violation of Yellow Line (Section 18(II) RRR119/177 MVA)– Rs 100

• Using High Beam (Section 112(4)(A)&(C) 177MVA)– Rs 100

• Using mobile phone while driving (Section 184 MVA)– Rs 100

There is also several other newly introduced laws in the amended bill which seem to as laws that may not be keenly followed. For instance, Oversize vehicles (Section 182B), which has been newly introduced, can attract a fine of Rs 5,000, Aggregators (violations of licencing conditions) section 193, has a fine of Rs 25,000 to Rs 1 lakh, and not providing way for emergency vehicles which can attract a fine of Rs 10,000.