Alarmed with the increasing cases of high speed and rash driving among the people, especially the youth, the West Bengal government had launched a campaign on road safety under the catching tagline, ‘Safe Drive Save Life’. The campaign has so far brought good results as deaths caused by road accidents have been on the decline for some time now.
Road accidents take the lives of over two lakh people in India every day. Taking note of this, the government of West Bengal had swung into action and launched an aggressive campaign to educate people about road safety rules and the danger from overspeeding.
In conversation with Indian Masterminds, IPS Meet Kumar, Assistant Commissioner of Police (Traffic), Biddhanagar, gave more information about the initiative and revealed how successful it has been in managing to steer away the youth from speed towards responsible driving.
SAFE DRIVE SAVE LIFE
The increasing rate of road accidents and deaths led the government of West Bengal to give special focus on creating road safety awareness across the state.
“Road safety depends on the education of people, enforcement of laws, and engineering the rules. These are the three legs of the campaign under which people are sensitized to follow traffic rules and are informed about rules. They are also taught how to prevent accidents,” ACP Kumar told Indian Masterminds.
Under the campaign, several initiatives for raising awareness among road users were launched and road safety videos, slogans, jingles were played in the presence of officials and law-enforcing agencies of the state.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Some key takeaways have been pointed out in the campaign. No two-wheeler will be allowed to ply on main flyovers after 10:00 in the night where road accidents have increased due to over-speeding. The campaign will be considered a movement and will be included in the syllabus of schools to raise awareness among children.
“It also involves activities such as folk songs on road safety. An entire theme song was composed for the campaign and a film was made on road safety which is to be played at all the movie theatres of the state. A slew of activities take place under it,” the officer said.
The government also took measures to prevent the overloading of goods vehicles and encouraged competition across all blocks to prevent road accidents.
COUNSELING SPEED ADDICT
IPS Kumar gave an example of how they are going about counseling young people to give up speed driving. A college student named Mohd Shakeeb was a known speed addict in his area of jurisdiction. He used to regularly post on social media videos of him zipping through the city on his bike at speed of up to 175 km/hr. The 22-year-old has a fan following of 42,000 followers on Instagram and runs a YouTube channel.
ACP Kumar and his team came across one of his videos, in which he was seen vrooming through the traffic on his bike at a speed of over 150 km/hr.
“That boy uploaded a video of overspeeding in our area. So, we contacted him and called him to the station. There, I personally counseled him to leave this bad habit of dangerous driving and encouraged him to drive safely. He was convinced and pledged not to do it again.”
After his meeting with the police officer, Shakeeb, who always wanted to “inspire other bikers”, did it this time in the presence of police personnel and a huge gathering.
He was asked to be the chief guest at an event where he was asked to lead a motorcycle rally at a pace of 30 km/hr to encourage safe driving habits among motorcyclists.
And he did it with aplomb, driving home the fact that with proper guidance and self-determination, the most hardened of addicts of any kind can come back on track and resume a normal life.
