SIAM kick-starts Road Safety Week with ‘Walk for Safety’

The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) in association with the Ministry of Roads, Transport and Highways (MoRTH) and Delhi Police organised the ‘Walk for safety’ to initiate the ‘Road Safety Week’ in New Delhi today. The theme for the road safety week is ‘Your safety secures your family. Be cautious on roads’.

The event was flagged off by Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Roads, Transport, Highways and Shipping. The event also saw participation from Pusapati Ashok Gajapathi Raju, Minister for Civil Aviation; Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, Minister of State for Home Affairs; Sanjay Mitra, Secretary, Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways and Alok Kumar, Commissioner of Police, Delhi. The march started at the India Gate and concluded at Shastri Bhawan.

Talking about the initiative, K K Gandhi, executive director, SIAM, said: “SIAM is totally committed towards spreading the message of road safety among citizens. SIAM, with full support from its members, will organise programs at the 4,200 automobile dealer networks across the country along with training workshops, competitions, walks for students, drivers and general masses with the objective of reducing fatalities on our roads.”

Speaking at the event, Nitin Gadkari said, “Every year 500,000 accidents take place on Indian roads and of that 150,000 people lose their lives. It is even more unfortunate that there has been a 4.6 percent increase in the incidents of road accidents in 2016 than the previous year. In order to make things better and make our roads safer, the government is working on multiple things including road engineering, road signage, creating safe barriers and building cement concrete roads. MoRTH has also launched a pilot project on Delhi- Jaipur highway to provide a free-to-air information distribution system that use radio to make the travelling experience on National Highways safer, faster and hassle-free.”

Gadkari reiterated the commitment of his Ministry to reduce the number of road accidents and the associated fatalities by 50 pecent in the next few years. He said his Ministry was working on all the 4 Es of road safety – Engineering, Enforcement, Education and Emergency Care – to meet this objective. He informed that the work of rectification of identified accident 'Black Spots' is underway in full swing. An amount of Rs 11,000 crore has been set aside for this purpose. He also called upon people to report to the Ministry any spot where there were very frequent road accidents, so that steps could be taken to rectify the engineering defects. He also informed that flyovers, underpasses, crash barriers, rumble strips, traffic signages etc were being  put up in an appropriate manner to bring down road accidents.

Gadkari also expressed hope that the Motor Vehicles (Amendment ) Bill which is with the Department- related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture for examination will be passed by Parliament in its next session.

The Bill addresses road safety issues by providing for stiffer penalties, permitting electronic enforcement, improving fitness certification and licensing regime, statutory provisions for protection of good samaritans and recognition of IT-enabled enforcement systems. The Bill also paves the way for reforms in public transport which in turn will help in improving road safety. The Bill contains provisions for treatment of accident victims during the golden hour which will help in saving lives.

Referring to the Good Samaritans Guidelines issued by the Ministry, Gadkari called upon people to come forward to help accident victims so that prompt intervention and emergency care can save lives. 

New mobile apps

During the Road Safety week, the Ministry of Road Transport, Highway and Shipping through the National Informatics Centre (NIC) is also launching two android-based mobile applications. They are:

E-challan: This is a comprehensive digital solution for transport enforcement and traffic police, delivered through mobile applications and a web portal. It is an initiative to improve service access and transparency in the system.

M-Parivahan: This mobile-based application is meant for common citizens and transport operators who can access various transport-related services. It provides a unique feature of virtual driving license and virtual registration certificate through back-end connectivity to the Transport National Register, encrypted QR code and Adhaar-based authentication which will allow an option to replace the existing physical documents/cards with the secured, enforceable digital entities.

Commenting on road safety, Alok Kumar, Commissioner of Police, Delhi, said, “The Supreme Court guidelines on the ‘Good Samaritan’ law have been accepted by the government. Rules are being simplified and made helpful for people to encourage them to help road accident victims.”

Maruti Suzuki partners with Gurgaon Police

Maruti Suzuki India along with Gurgaon Police launched a road safety initiative for Gurgaon – Sabhya Roads, Bhavya Gurgaon –  to promote road safety and bring down accidents by creating awareness. Navdeep Singh Virk, Commissioner of Police, Gurgaon and R S Kalsi, ED (Marketing and Sales), Maruti Suzuki India, signed a five-year MoU.

In the first phase, the carmaker has identified a high traffic stretch, where it will work on improving the traffic conditions. It will deploy 100 Sadak Suraksha Sevaks on the corridor to manage the traffic and assist traffic police in spreading road safety awareness.

Explaining the initiative, R S Kalsi said, “We are happy to partner with Gurgaon Police in this initiative. Our research partner National Transportation Planning and Research Centre (NATPAC) will help us to monitor, analyse and develop campaigns in a scientific manner. In the first phase, we plan to invest around Rs 5 crore, which will be scaled up as the programme progresses.”

As is known, Maruti began its safe driving initiative with the Institute of Driving and Traffic Research (IDTR) in partnership with the Delhi government in the year 2000. The company currently manages six IDTRs including two in NCR and one each in Dehradun, Vadodara, Rohtak and Bahadurgarh, in partnership with state governments. These institutes offer learner and refresher courses, including to commercial vehicle drivers.

It also collaborates with its dealers who manage and operate more than 370 Maruti Driving Schools (MDS) across the country.