After Transport Minister faces aggressive honking, Kerala launches Statewide crackdown on high-decibel air horns

Kerala’s Transport Minister K.B. Ganesh Kumar has announced a Statewide crackdown on the use of high-decibel air horns.

Motor Vehicles Department (MVD) officials said Mr. Ganesh Kumar himself was at the receiving end of aggressive honking by a seemingly impatient heavy-vehicle driver recently.

Mr. Ganesh Kumar also ordered MVD officials to confiscate air horns from vehicles and destroy them publicly to send a clear message to wrongdoers.

Special drive

In a communique, Mr. Ganesh Kumar underscored the rampant use of air horns. He ordered a special drive from October 13 to 19. Field officers should report violations to Deputy Transport Commissioners and take stringent action, including fines. 

Prolonged and unreasonable blowing of air horns, especially by buses and freight vehicles, posed a threat to drivers of smaller vehicles, including two-wheelers. They also put pedestrians at risk and violated sound pollution norms, it said.

Mr. Ganesh Kumar found himself in the spotlight last week when he abruptly cancelled the flagging-off ceremony for 52 recently procured enforcement vans by the MVD.

He said some officers responsible for organising the function, touted as an achievement of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government, had failed to arrange the vehicles in an eye-catching order. The Minister had also frowned on the alleged laxity of MVD officials in giving maximum publicity to the ceremony.