The number exists. The order exists. Where is it on our buses?

The other day, I was driving from Vypin towards Marine Drive when a private bus came overtaking a vehicle from the opposite direction. It was headed straight at me.

I moved as far left as I could. My car went onto the footpath, where thankfully people weren’t walking. The bus slipped between vehicles and carried on.

“Once I’d stopped, I tried to read the bus’s registration number, but other vehicles had moved between us. Then I looked for a complaint number on the bus, some way to report what had just happened. I couldn’t find that either.

That number exists. In February 2023, the Kerala High Court directed that Kochi’s Traffic Eye complaint number, 6238100100, be displayed on the front and back of buses, or at least on the back. It was to be large enough to read from 10 to 15 metres away and remain on the bus permanently. The court gave authorities two weeks to get it done.

That was three and a half years ago.

And there’s a second number. In March 2025, the State Transport Authority made a sticker compulsory on all buses, with this message: “Am I driving dangerously? Send WhatsApp video to 9188961100.” The Transport Commissioner reported that circular to the High Court.

So I went looking. I photographed 60 buses in Kochi. Only two visibly carried a complaint number. TWO.

Let me be clear about what that means. Fifty buses in Kochi are not a survey of every bus in Kerala. I’m not claiming that 98 per cent of the state’s buses have no sticker. But when an ordinary person can find the required number on only two buses out of 60 they document, we have a problem that deserves more than another circular.

I also spoke to some drivers and conductors. Several said they didn’t know about the number. Perhaps they didn’t. Perhaps they didn’t want to talk about it. One man told me the number was strictly required.

“All buses?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“But your bus doesn’t have it.”

He fumbled for a moment, then said they’d taken it off and would put it back soon.

That exchange would be funny if the reason I started looking hadn’t been a bus forcing my car onto a footpath.

I know private bus crews work under pressure. Timetables can be tight, traffic is unpredictable, and drivers don’t set every condition they work under. Those pressures need attention too. But they cannot be a reason for the public to have no visible way to report dangerous driving. And they don’t explain why a sticker ordered years ago is still missing from the buses I checked.

How many people have had a close call and gone home shaken? How many pedestrians have had to jump aside? How many arguments and frightening overtakes never become a complaint because the vehicle is already gone and nobody could read a number on it?

We tend to count the crashes. We rarely count the times someone just managed to get out of the way.

So I have five questions for Kerala’s Transport Minister, the Transport Commissioner and the Motor Vehicles Department:

1. If the complaint numbers exist and their display is mandatory, why are so many buses still allowed to run without them?
2. What is the deadline for every bus to display the required number? Give the public a date.
3. What exactly will happen to a bus caught without it after that deadline?
4. How often will you check? Will you ensure the number is visible and readable, and tell the public clearly which number to use?
5. Will you publish how many complaints come in, how many you act on, and what action you take?

I’ll submit the photographs and details from the buses I documented to the authorities. I’m asking them to inspect the wider fleet themselves and tell us what they find.

And to everyone in Kerala: let’s ask the authorities to announce a clear deadline. Once it passes, keep an eye out for buses that still don’t display the required number. If you spot one, take a photo from a safe place and note its registration number if you can. Report it to the MVD and ask what action was taken. Please don’t take photos while driving.

A court order should not depend on pedestrians, passengers and other drivers doing the inspection themselves. But after three and a half years, perhaps our cameras can help make the missing stickers impossible to ignore.

The bus that drove me onto the footpath kept going. I’m glad no one was hurt. The next person may not be so lucky. Let’s not wait for them to become another headline.