The Kerala High Court on Thursday (October 15) called for urgent practical solutions from various authorities in the State for ensuring road safety and for implementing its earlier directions in this regard.

The Division Bench of Justice Raja Vijayaghavan V. and Justice K.V. Jayakumar today observed:

"This Court appraised the learned counsels appearing for the parties that time is of essence and the directions of this Court will have to be implemented without any delay."

The case is posted on November 3 at 1:45 p.m. for further consideration.

"We want practical suggestions, not a formal counter," Justice Jayakumar orally added. The Court was considering a suo motu initiated writ petition to monitor road safety in the State as well as a connected plea.

The Bench had issued a slew of directions to improve road safety in the State including introduction of a State-wide, GIS-enabled Integrated Road Safety Monitoring Platform to integrate existing systems of PWD, the Motor Vehicles department, the Kerala Police and other State agencies. It had also given comprehensive directions to come with a solution to do away with over speeding, rash and negligence on the part of private buses.

Today, when the matter came up, the Court referred to its directions and orally remarked that it would like to get input from the authorities concerned, including the Transport Commissioner, to resolve the issues highlighted:

"We will talk to the Transport Commissioner and whichever authorities, who can come online. We can modify our previous order. We just gave a skeleton."

It added to the interim order: "We make it clear that any of the respondent officers, who want to appear, can appear either in person or virtually so that the inputs from such officer can also be obtained."

While hearing the cases, the Court pointed out various issues, including over speeding, lane indiscipline, absence of adequate and visible signage, lack of monitoring despite installation of AI camera. Court highlighted that there should be proper monitoring and prevention methods by proper communication of the incidents spotted on the cameras. It also referred to the recent Mini Cooper car accident in Kochi's Nedumbassery that claimed the lives of three:

"This boy was riding at 200 kmph and your AI camera has spotted it. There should be some method by which you should stop."

The Court also orally expressed concern over over-speeding of private buses and observed that instead of setting out timings, some other modalities developed in other countries and States can be adapted to suit the situation in Kerala.

"Timing will not work ever. So we are just asking you there are other modalities in other places so we are asking you to set up some sort of an expert management team who can device a better method because speed should not be an incentive for the drivers."

Counsel for the petitioner: M. Bindudas, R.T. Pradeep, Niranjan T. Pradeep

Counsel for the respondents: P.L. Venukumar, K.A. Salil Narayanan - Standing Counsel - NHAI, Riji Rajendran - Standing Counsel - NATPAC, P.M. Saneer, P. Sreekumar - ASGI, Swathikumar B.S. - Standing Counsel - KSRTC, M.A. Zohra - Standing Counsel - Keltron

Amicus Curiae: Prem Kamath D.