Monday 15 December 2014

Road safety begins with me

India is a huge country with a massive population.This population is ever increasing.It is but natural that with this the number of vehicles is also on the rise.A few decades back very few vehicles could be seen on the roads.In Delhi itself there were three major areas of habitation,like the Lutyens Delhi,the Walled city and the Civil lines area.In the walled city area the main transport was the tonga and the bicycles.Very few cars could be seen on the roads,and thus there was little or no congestion on the roads.
Today the scene is different,the number of cars and commercial vehicles have increased so much that they overflow on the roads.At any time of the day,one would find a traffic jam.The bicycles jostle with each other for space and the scooters and motorcycles drive like acrobats ,one moment on the footpath and the next they are half on the road,then they drive erratically trying to edge out the cars on to one side.It is most traumatic to be on such a road and if you are driving in such conditions,which usually happens then you can only pray for your safety.The cars are not to be left out.They frequently try changing lanes,honk regularly as if that would make the traffic move which has stopped due to a red traffic light signal.
The cyclist need to be educated that they cannot just enter onto the main roads where the traffic is moving at a fast pace. They need to watch out  for any approaching traffic before they can come onto the road to avoid accidents.
Students in school  should be given training on simulators to make them better aware of road safety issues,the rules and what to do in case of an accident.
College students are another target group for which awareness camps can be conducted. Apart from that hoardings can be put up across cities showing the benefits of seat belts or importance of following traffic rules. Another initiative could be using the social media. When a person is seen breaking a rule,.he /she must be challaned and more importantly the picture of this person can be clicked and uploaded on social media sites like facebook and  this person's family and friends are tagged in the picture so that in some of the persons a sense of guilt and responsibility may come or else at least they would resist the temptation of breaking the rules due to the fear of being publicly shamed and disgraced as a result of  sharing of their deeds on facebook or other social media sites. And once a person is reported on social media, an app or a page could be made available for people who would like to advice him about his mistakes. This could be continued for 30 days or more for serial offenders. Everyone has mobile phones and apart from social media comments all these advice and comments can be forwarded on his mobile.

Nissan Safety Driving Forum(NSDF) is an initiative started by Nissan Motors Co. Ltd. Their objective is to create awareness towards road safety and promote the sense of safe  driving and being safe on the roads. It also focuses on Safety on the road for oneself as well as for others. The forum believes in covering various cities in the country and has covered cities like New Delhi,Mumbai,Chennai in its drive .
The next cities that it would cover this year would be Chandigarh, Jalandhar, Jaipur, Vadodara, Nagpur, Chennai, Mangalore and Kochi. NSDF believes that by engaging the people at large in this movement it wuuld be able to create an awareness about Road Safety and make citizens more receptive towards the idea of following traffic rules
More information can be found here. The Nissan Safety Driving Forum.

1 comment:

  1. Very nice and interesting post...I completely agree about the safety measures that has been mentioned...thank u for sharing such a good thought...

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