Gadkari At 140 Kmph In Fortuner But Seat Belt Warning Sign Is Blinking! (Video)
Nitin Gadkari, the Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways of India, recently visited packages 6 and 7 of the Greenfield Vadodara–Mumbai Expressway in Gujarat, and inspected its quality. A video of him checking out the freshly constructed patch on foot and in a Toyota Fortuner was later shared on his official X (previously Twitter) handle. In it, the SUV was being driven at 140kph. The clip gained massive traction online but sparked a series of comments asking the minister to ‘wear the seat belt’. Let’s delve into the details...
The Video
As it opens, we see Gadkari standing on the newly built stretch. We even see him walking on the cemented section. Later, he is seen sitting on the passenger side inside a Toyota Fortuner's front seat, speeding through the highway. Its speedometer shows 140kph. Look closer, and you’ll see the ‘seatbelt reminder’ flashing in the instrument cluster. The minister is seated on the front passenger seat. The vehicle continues to speed on the straight stretch. Someone seated in the second row filmed the scene.
Netizens Aren’t Happy!
Image: screenshot compilation of comments
The video soon went viral. Netizens started actively engaging with the post. They soon pointed out that the minister was not wearing his seatbelt at the time of filming. They backed these claims by mentioning about the flashing seatbelt reminder lamp.
“Seatbelts are for citizens. BJP lords are immortal.”- wrote a user, sharing a screenshot showing the seatbelt reminder. Another user commented “Wear seatbelt. The light is flashing on the dashboard, and please drive within the speed limit. It shows 130 kmph.” Many entrepreneurs and prominent social media figures have also come up with comments...
Image: screenshot compilation of comments
Bhaskar Rao, Bengaluru’s former commissioner of police, who often shares content around road safety on social media, wrote: “Definitely a Risky ride at over 100 kmph and not wearing seat belt… not a good example too.”
But was he wearing a seat belt or not?
The video lacks a clear shot or an angle that would help us confirm if Mr Gadkari was belted up. While at a quick look, you cannot see him wearing a seat belt, the angle from which the video was shot makes it impossible for us to confirm it.
The seatbelt warning lamp, in this case, was the biggest giveaway - but that's not enough still.. Most vehicles now come with seatbelt reminders for the front seats. This Fortuner is likely from 2021-2023 and seems to have the feature for both front and rear seats. The flashing light in this case indicates that one or more of passengers in the first two rows were not belted up. It can be anyone in the SUV not wearing his seat belt, or multiple people not wearing it. Or, it might be a seat belt warning light malfunction, though this is not common.
Why Are The Reactions So Strong?
Gadkari is someone who has been very vocal about his intolerance to life-endangering practices on public roads and has been strongly advocating strict adherence to road and lane rules. In the past, we have seen him raise concerns about India’s rising road accident counts multiple times.
He even mandated seatbelts for the rear passengers in all cars, after Indian-born Irish businessman and former chairman of Tata Group, Cyrus Mistry died in a road accident in 2022. Later, we saw him impose a strict ban on cheap accessories that could be used to trick the seatbelt reminders in our cars (which usually include a chime and a flashing lamp), and turn the warning off. The man who advocated seatbelts so openly not using one in real life, seems to have confused netizens, and even enraged some!
Even if it was someone else who wasn’t belted up in the SUV, given his strong advocacy for the feature, Gadkari should have ideally made sure that the defaulter belted up before the car started speeding.
Time remains before we see how the minister would react towards this social media backlash, or come up with an explanation of what really happened there. In the least probable case, it can even be a malfunction with the warning system!