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Road Safety Literacy Prgramme
for Villages Situated on Highways |
The National & State Highways constitute nearly 8% of the total road length in India. However, 50% of almost 85,000 annual road accident fatalities in India occur on these highways with 20,000 happening on those highway stretches which are passing through communities and settlements. The main victims are the residents of such settlements.
This clearly establishes the need for imparting road traffic education to these villagers. Thus far
in India, road safety educational efforts for reducing road accidents have been mostly concentrated in urban areas. IRTE chalked out a pioneering proposal for imparting road safety education to villages situated on highways. The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, Govt. of India, supported the vision of IRTE in this endeavour to make villages on major highways, road safety literate by sponsoring the pilot for this program.
To meet the objectives of this program, it is intended not to carry out programs everywhere on a uniform structured manner but to conduct area-specific programs developed and tailored to suit the typical requirements of a particular area or region. In order to carry out such a strategy, the procedure adopted includes a proper scientific study of the accident pattern on roads and highways within the area. This encompasses analysis of road accident FIRs (First Information Report) collected from the police stations under whose jurisdiction the study area falls. The accident analysis, coupled with field surveys, including ones with still and video photography, provide the patterns of road usage, existing traffic problems, deficiencies in road features, road user behavior etc. This information provides a very sound basis for identifying the road safety augmentation needs as well as preparing road user awareness programs including the target populations for which such efforts are to be directed.
As a pilot, a highly accident-prone stretch of 15km was identified along the National Highway 2 on the outskirts of Delhi. Separate camps held at different villages along this stretch gave basic knowledge about safe behaviour on road. The emphasis was on giving suggestions about keeping oneself protected while on a fast moving
highway.
Special sessions were held for the village youth where they were given training about imparting road safety knowledge to the villagers even after the camps are over. Handouts giving tips about being safe on the highway as a cyclist and a pedestrian were distributed along with reflective tapes to be stuck on their bullock carts, bicycles etc..
Road user behaviour study before the camp and subsequently shows a marked improvement and the village are able to use the road more responsibily as they feel better informed about the hazards on the road and the their own behaviour.
