Instilling right values to prevent accidents

Drive Skilfully

Road rage, rash driving and road accidents have unfortunately become an indispensable part of our lives. According to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, 79 per cent of accidents in 2010-11 occurred due to the drivers’ (as in chauffeur) fault.

Realising that it is important to impart soft skills and improving behavioural aspects of drivers if the number of accidents has to be brought down, some companies have introduced special training programmes for drivers.

Maruti Suzuki, the automobile giant in partnership with the local police, set up Road Safety Knowledge Centres in police stations to enhance traffic education and inculcate safe driving habits. “Local traffic police approached us after witnessing cases where violators would prefer to pay the fine several times over but not follow rules,” says Mahesh Rajouria, spokesperson, Maruti Suzuki.

These centres begun last year in October, hold two hour sessions on road safety and traffic rules but are held for traffic violators before they submit the penalty for violation. There are four such centres each at Panipat, Gurgaon, Karnal and Faridabad.

Almost all drivers know rules but accidents take place because of lack of sense of responsibility and abysmal attitudes towards re­gu­lations.

Training at local driving schools is largely confined to practical aspects of driving without any emphasis on sensitisation towards traffic rules and regulations. “Our programme also in­cl­udes theory classes on traffic laws and how to cope with emergency situations but learners are not interested. They just want to learn how to drive, not how to escape accidents,” says Amarjeet Singh Dhaliwal, owner of Dhaliwal Motor Driving School in Rohini.

To instil a sense of responsibility among drivers, GlobalTHEN has designed an inter-active and multi-media training programme for them named Pawan Ko Kahin Dekha Kya. Begun in February this year, this indoor programme presents an ideal but fictional cab driver, Pawan, and aims to transform the way drivers think and work. Pawan handles difficult situations and puts safety on a priority.

“The campaign aims to push the learner to evolve from a mere driver to being Pawan, the super driver. What we want to say is Pawan is a quality within all of us. We have to discover the Pawan within us,” says Ram Badrinathan, CEO and founder of GlobalThen.
To engage with the drivers thoroughly, the campaign has leveraged Sourabh J Sarkar’s OmniDEL approach and the experience has been treated in a filmy way. The approach blends education with entertainment. “The training programme does not impart driving skills. Here, the drivers are skilled but untrained and no one has focused on his behaviour so far,” says Ram.

Issues like punctuality, knowledge, personal hygiene, safety, vehicle hygiene and maintenance, communication and etiquette are all dealt within the course of six sessions, 26 activities, group exercises and music, drama and poetry sessions.

Corporates have been supportive of the trend. “We recently conducted the training for our drivers in Gurgaon and the response was great. The drivers not only feel empowered but also confident about their professional abilities,” says Ravi Prakash, Head Facility and Admin at MakeMyTrip India Pvt. Ltd.

One can only hope that individual efforts like these will help in curbing some of those fatalities on roads.