Steps will be taken to prevent reckless driving: Minister

Steps would be taken to increase the time gap between private buses that operate in the State to between five and 10 minutes, from the present gap of approximately three minutes, to prevent unhealthy competition and reckless driving, Transport Minister K.B. Ganesh Kumar said here on Tuesday.

A decision in this regard would be taken based on accident-related and other data collected by the Kerala Road Safety Authority and the Transport department. The rearrangement of time gap is crucial to improving the quality of public transport and preventing accidents due to undue competition among private buses.

Such a reasonable time gap is the norm in most countries. Initiatives like installation of CCTVs in private buses have helped lessen accidents and increase fare collection since unscrupulous bus crew cannot anymore hoodwink owners on daily passenger footfall. Many owners were thus earning up to ₹3,000 extra per day, the Minister said.

Earlier, he visited the bottlenecked Vyttila Junction and said that measures were on the anvil to streamline traffic flow.