Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2017-05-02

Establishment of the National Road Safety Commission

- Presently, one of the major challenges faced by Sri Lanka, is the minimizing of loss of life and damage to property due to road accidents. The only institution which is available to deal with this situation is the National Road Safety Commission established under the Motor Traffic Act. However, when focusing the attention on the complex problem of road safety, it is clear that the establishment of a Commission with due responsibilities and authority is more appropriate as has been manifested with the experiences prevalent in other countries. As such, although approval has been granted in the year 2010 to establish a National Road Safety Commission, no action has yet been taken, to proceed with the necessary action to appoint such Commission. Therefore, the proposal made by Hon. Nimal Siripala de Silva, the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation, to establish a “National Road Safety Commission”, a new Government Institution with the authority to activate a mechanism which will minimize the road accidents increasing day by day, to conduct a suitable methodology for qualitative driver services and to share the knowledge with regard to the collection of information required for the purpose and to appoint a Committee comprising of the representatives of the relevant field to prepare a draft Bill with that objective, was approved by the Cabinet.