Renuka

New Delhi, June 17: Parents of underage drivers, not the guilty children, should be punished for breaking traffic laws that lead to fatal accidents, women and child development minister Renuka Chowdhury said today.

Road transport officials, however, said while the law had provisions aimed at punishing car owners who allowed children less than 18 from driving their vehicles, these were rarely enforced because establishing parental responsibility was “next to impossible”.

The problem may have come into focus after last Saturday’s incident in which three teenagers returning home from a late-night party died after their car crashed in Gurgaon. A fourth boy, who police claim was driving, is in hospital.

The Centre keeps no consolidated data on the number of accidents involving underage drivers. But Delhi traffic police veterans estimate that between 8 to 10 per cent of all road deaths involve vehicles driven by minors. Nearly 95,000 people were killed in road accidents in 2005, according to the most recent statistics available with the ministry of road transport and highways.

“The children are not at fault. The parents should be responsible enough not to allow an underage child to drive. This is the reason they are not allowed to vote or drink. The father’s licence should be taken back and only then will there be a check (on such incidents),” Chowdhury said.

Chowdhury said she would write to the road transport ministry suggesting stringent action against parents. A senior ministry official, involved in proposing amendments to the motor vehicles act, said the proposal already existed as law but was hard to implement.

“No amendment to the law will bar underage drivers. The minister is correct in holding parents responsible, but the children, the actual violators, cannot be allowed to get away scot-free,” the official said.

The law has clearly laid down punishments for car owners who allow minors to drive, he said, but added that it was tough establishing how the minor got hold of the keys. “That is the concern the police bring to us.” Section 3 of the motor vehicles act bars minors from driving and spells out punishments of up to three months, or Rs 1,000 (or both). The same punishment can be handed out to a person held guilty of allowing a minor to drive.

“Whoever, being the owner or person in charge of a motor vehicle, causes or permits any other person who does not satisfy the provisions of Section 3 or Section 4 to drive the vehicle shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three months, or with fine which may extend to one thousand rupees, or with both,” Section 180 of the same act states. Section 4 addresses the offences of driving without a licence.

A senior Delhi traffic police officer said under Section 180, it was hard to pinpoint the “person in charge of a motor vehicle”.

“In most cases of underage driving leading to acci- dents, the minor has borr- owed the car keys from a chauffeur. In others, the parents can claim the chau- ffeur was in charge. But can one really blame the chauffeur?”