Of the 1,339 fatalities in road mishaps in the past three years, not one was a victim of a mechanical fault in the killer vehicle. It was always ‘human error’ that caused the deaths.

The finding, according to official records of the traffic department’s fatal squad, is evidence of how the city police are trying to help rogue vehicles and victims’ families recover insurance claims. This year, 57 people have died in road mishaps and in all the cases, officially, reckless driving was blamed.

“We never mention in our probe report that the accident occurred because of a mechanical fault in the vehicle. If we do, the owner of the bus faces a lot of harassment in recovering his insurance money and the victim’s insurance claim becomes limited,” said an official of the traffic department. “But the true scenario is different. Almost 50 per cent of the accidents occur because of mechanical faults in the vehicles.”

After commissioner of police Sujoy Chakraborty expressed concern over the increasing fatality count on the roads, his force mounted a campaign against reckless driving. But there was no effort to identify the faulty vehicles.

“There are many government and private buses plying with mechanical faults. And in several cases, a loose brake or a jammed steering wheel led to the accident. The men at the wheel were booked for reckless driving, but nothing was done to take a faulty vehicle off the road,” said a senior officer of the traffic department.

“Issuing a fitness certificate to a vehicle is the job of the public vehicles department (PVD). Only it can decide whether a vehicle is fit to ply on the road or not,” said Banibrata Basu, joint commissioner of police (traffic). After a fatal mishap, the general practice is that the victim’s family gets Rs 50,000 as compensation. Whose fault —the victim’s or the driver’s — led to the accident does not apply. “If we suppress the fact that the killer vehicle had a mechanical fault, the victim’s family can move the tribunal against reckless driving and claim more compensation.”

A fatal squad official said the PVD is kept posted of the mechanical faults of a vehicle that could have triggered the fatal mishap. “But it is not mentioned in our official record.”