Road safety campaign in full gear

Mumbai: The “Road Safety Cell” formed earlier this year on the orders of the Supreme Court is approaching the families of victims of road accidents to make them a part of the cell’s campaign to spread messages of road safety.

Speaking to The Asian Age, Ravindra Gaikwad, who heads the cell and is also chief of the RTO Thane and Konkan region, gave details about their plans to reduce deaths due to road accidents, which are around 2 lakh annually, the second-most dreadful ‘epidemic’ after heart disease since the last three years.

“Whenever someone dies, it is the family which suffers the most. Only the family can understand the pain and the loss more than anyone else. The loss is undoubtedly irreparable, but the experience, if shared, may caution someone or help prevent someone from going through the same painful state again. It is also believed that when one shares their sorrow, the pain lessens. So we thought, why not give the families of the victims a platform to share their grief and also appeal to the people to be careful so that such gloom doesn’t descend on them,” said Mr Gaikwad.

According to Mr Gaikwad, they plan to station road accident victims’ family members in crowded places like railway stations, bus stands and traffic intersections with placards and messages to create public awareness towards road safety. Plans are also afoot to shame people who break traffic rules on social media.

“To start with, we have started identifying ‘black spots’ on roads. Black spots are those areas where maximum accidents occur. We are trying to understand the basic reasons behind that and working towards rectifying them. Like, if the turn is too sharp, we have tried to make the road linear; if there are instances of over-speeding, then we have put speed breakers; we have put stringent rules in place for issuing drivers’ licences; we are enforcing tough fines and taking action after sudden checks; we have also introduced customised vehicles for the police with speed guns; and the cell is reviewing its progress in every district on a regular basis,” said Mr Gaikwad.