Mumbai: A 25-year-old scooteristdied after his two-wheeler was hit by a BEST bus at Govandi around 11.30 pm on Saturday — the third fatal crash involving a BEST bus in the city in less than a week. In Saturday night’s incident, The scooterist, Dikshit Vinod Rajput who worked as a peon at a college in Ghatkopar, was on his way to his home in Govandi at the time. He is survived by his mother.
The scooterist, who the police said was not wearing a helmet, was overtaking the bus when he lost balance and came under the rear wheels, the bus driver, Vinod Rankhambe (39), who has been arrested, has told the police. The scooterist sustained grievous head injury. He was rushed to Rajawadi Hospital, Ghatkopar, where he was pronounced dead before admission.
The driver, Vinod Appaji Rankhambe (40), has been charged under sections 106(1) of Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita which deals with ‘causing death by negligence’ and section 281 for ‘rash or negligent driving’. The bus was on its way from Shivaji Nagar to Kurla.
An official said that they had reviewed footage from CCTVs around the accident spot, but claimed that “there os no clarity regarding fault attribution” due to trees and signboards blocking the the accident spot due to which the sequence of events has not been captured.
The three accidents in less than a week involved buses that are on contract (wet lease), with BEST. Since 2022, there have been 45 deaths in accidents involving wet lease buses while the corresponding number of fatalities for BEST-owned buses stands at 22 for the same period, shows data. In the same period, the number of contractual buses rose from 1,268 to 1,890 as of date. On the other hand, the number of buses in BEST’s fleet reduced from 1,999 to 1,021 in the same period.
Drivers of wet lease buses will now be trained by the contractors followed by training from BEST. However, passenger rights activist Nikhil Desai said that driver training should be conducted exclusively by BEST, and the organisation cannot delegate this responsibility to contractors. “A three-day training for the driver involved in the Kurla crash was inadequate,” he said, adding that experience should be the criterion to recruit drivers for e-buses.
“Electric buses have swift acceleration… so, there should be regulated driving… Also, speed should be restricted to 40 kmph,” he suggested. A senior BEST official, said that there is a plan to restrict speed of all BEST buses to 40 kmph.
Commuter rights activist Rupesh Shelatkar said, “We have witnessed numerous instances of irresponsible driving over the past four years following the introduction of contractual buses…”
