Awareness campaign on safe driving

“Every day, the City witnesses two deaths and 20 injuries on roads. This is quite alarming. Awareness among road users plays a bigger role than laws in bringing down accident-related fatalities and non-fatalities,” said Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic and Security) M A Saleem.

He was speaking after launching ‘Total Quartz Safety Month’ organised by 92.7 Big FM radio station and Total Oil India Private Limited (TOIPL), here on Wednesday. The campaign, spread across 21 cities of the country, aims to create awareness on hazards of unsafe driving. The campaign has four phases followed by Total Quartz Safety Run in each of these cities.

Bangalore faces traffic congestion and many accidents occur during night mainly due to drunken driving. While overspeeding, wrong judgement, lack of safety devices and defective vehicles contribute for accidents during day time. The situation is similar in most of the major cities across the country.

India accounted for 1.42 lakh deaths on roads due to accidents, beside one million injuries during 2011, Saleem said.

Road users never violate traffic rules in Scandinavian countries where accidents never take place. Citizens there are known for lane discipline. Laws are very strict in Arabian countries where accident-related deaths and injuries rarely occur. Lack of discipline and liberal legal provisions have encouraged Indian road users to violate norms, he analysed.

Retired police officer and traffic warden M T Nayak said the traffic police decided to educate schoolchildren about road safety and launched campaigns five years ago. “The police visit around 150 schools every year across the City and conduct programmes in campuses to promote the importance of traffic rules,” he added.

Chairman and director of BMS Educational Institute K V Subramanyan urged the police officers to empower traffic wardens to improve the situation on the roads. He said safety of pedestrians was the biggest challenge in the City.

Actor Ramya Barna, Indrajith Mohanty of TOIPL and Rohan Chandran  of 92.7 Big FM radio requested Bangaloreans to join the campaign.