Now, reflective tapes must for public service vehicles

Transport Commissioner Tenkasi S Jawahar has instructed all zonal officers, regional transport officers and motor vehicle inspectors to ensure that all the public service vehicles, including two-wheelers, goods vehicle, omni bus, agricultural tractor, power tiller and construction equipment vehicle, are mandated to affix reflective tape and rear marking plates conforming to AIS:090 standards.

“The inspecting official should verify the genuineness of the fitment certificate issued by the approved manufacturer using the security features such as hologram, scanning the QR code for online verification of the fitment certificate from the manufacturer’s server. Only after satisfactory verification of genuineness of the fitment certificate, the inspecting official should approve the vehicle for fitness certification,” he said in the letter.

Without complying with these norms commercial vehicles cannot get fitness certificate and it’s illegal to ply any vehicle without having a valid fitness certificate. Stationary vehicles on road at night pose serious risk as it’s difficult to spot them and in most of the cases drivers don’t put cautionary signage for other vehicles.

An RTO official said the union ministry had issued a notification in November 2008 in which it had introduced a mandatory provision to fix retro-reflective tapes on all commercial vehicles manufactured after April 2009. “But owners of most of the older vehicles, taking advantage of this notification, are getting exemption during their annual fitment test. Now all the commercial vehicles should have the standard reflective tape affixed ,” said an official.