The Madras High Court (HC) has set aside the 2018 notification of Central government that had fixed a speed of 120 km/hour as the limit on highways and expressways.

• The order of HC was given on an appeal arising under the Motor Vehicles Act. Appeal was seeking the enhancement of compensation awarded to an appellant K Shyla.
• In the central government’s notification, speed limit was fixed at 120 km/hr on expressways, 100 km/hr on national highways while for M1 category of vehicles it was fixed at 60 km/hr.

Justices N Kirubakaran (since retired) and TV Tamilselvi noted that, over speeding is the main killer and responsible for most of the accidents. Despite knowing this fact, government has increased the limit for various reasons including the commercial reasons. It is resulting into more deaths. Citing this, the notification was quashed.

According to a report of 2020 by Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, six two-wheeler riders die every hour in India. Most of the two-wheeler riders are inviting accidents by over speeding.

HC noted that, it is the bounden duty of concerned Government to direct manufacturers of two wheelers to install speed governors in all the two-wheelers at the manufacturing stage itself. This will help in controlling the speed of vehicle as a result, deaths will be prevented and accidents will be averted.

Another factor for the increase in accidents is ‘over speeding is by imported vehicles’ that are not designed or manufactured for Indian conditions. Imported vehicles come with high-speed engines. Thus, they should be calibrated in a manner that vehicle would not pick up speed beyond the limit permitted in India.