100 respond to Selfie with Skywalk drive

 The initiative of the traffic police, #selfieONskywalk that kick-started on Friday, has received an overwhelming response.

The contest will continue for a full week till April 7 where citizens can click selfies on sskywalkers in the city and post them on social networking sites with #selfieONskywak and #besafe and win rewards from the police.

Two days into the initiative, Twitter handles and Facebook pages of Bengaluru Traffic Police (BTP) have received around 100 selfies from across the city, most of them from eastern Bengaluru. “Two sports celebrities have posted their selfies for the campaign. Former Indian fast bowler Venkatesh Prasad clicked his selfie on a skywalk on Old Airport Road and posted it on Friday, the first day. Ace cricketer K L Rahul has posted a selfie on a skywalk from London,” said Abhishek Goyal, deputy commissioner of police. “We are tracking the number of people tagged with the selfies and the number of shares to assess the extent of awareness spread on this campaign and will reward those who took that extra step,” added Goyal.

Around 2,396 people have died in road accidents between 2014 and 2016, of whom 1,044 were pedestrians. This year, since January, around 55 pedestrians have been killed. If one takes that extra effort to use a skywalk instead of crossing the road and make that a habit, precious lives can be saved, said a senior police officer. "In the east division alone, last year, there were 391 fatal accidents including 180 pedestrian deaths, accounting for 48% of the total casualties," added Goyal.