Every year, the country loses an average of 1,50,000 people to road accidents, of whom 25% of people are under 25 years old and 89% of people are under 60 years old. These are the productive working population of India, leading to a tremendous socio-economic loss for families, society and the Nation.
The Centre of Excellence for Road Safety (CoERS), IIT Madras, is working with the Greater Chennai Traffic Police (GCTP) on multiple capacity and capability improvement programs. As many as 69 investigating officers (IOs) have been upskilled in performing scientific crash investigations to identify the root causes of the crashes. A total of 40 children and 80 schoolteachers and parents were introduced to gamified activity-based learning of road safety to improve their knowledge and cognition on being an informed road user.
The awareness campaign for ‘Zero Accident Day ‘(ZAD) was inaugurated at the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) Depot by R.Sudhakar, IPS – Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic), in the presence of Dr.Alby John Varghese, IAS – Managing Director of Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC), Professor Venkatesh Balasubramanian – Head of CoERS, Bandi Gangadhar, IPS – Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) South, P-Kumar – Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) North and V.Baskaran – Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) East.
CoERS organised capacity-building workshops at IIT Madras to drive activity-based learning (ABL) on road safety rules, signages and etiquette for MTC bus drivers, school children, teachers and traffic wardens. In Addition, GCTP has engineered several initiatives at the community level, such as engaging the vibrant youth as stakeholders, reel-making competitions and several flashmobs as part of the campaign.
Programmes are also underway to engage other sections of society including sensitising e-commerce platforms and their staff, IT firms, and engagements with hospitals, auto-rickshaw drivers, residential associations and slums. Activities to incentivise compliance with road rules such as traffic signals, seatbelts, helmets and stop line programmes are also a part of the Zero Accident Day campaign.
This entire month of the Zero Accident Day (ZAD) campaign by GCTP will be about road safety education and awareness for all road users in Chennai at all age levels. Several activities at the community level, schools, colleges and IT parks are planned in Chennai as an endeavour towards making Chennai roads safe.
