E-Paper
Road safety lessons for U.P. govt school students on the cards
On the initiative of state transport department, basic education department has issued instructions to principals of these schools to hold a meeting for awareness of parents too
Now 1.91 crore students studying in 1.31 lakh government primary and upper primary schools across the state will be taught road safety rules during morning assembly. These school will display traffic rules and slogans on walls of their premises to draw students’ attention towards road safety.
On the initiative of the transport department, the basic education department has issued instructions to principals of these schools to hold a meeting for awareness of parents too. Joint director, basic education, U.P., Ganesh Kumar said transport department has approached them to spread awareness among children. “Students will be told to not use mobile phones while crossing roads, to educate parents to not run vehicles in high speed and use seat belts while driving,” Kumar said.
“A school transport safety committee will be constituted to raise awareness among the students to follow road signs like zebra lines, cross road when signal is red, avoid over speeding, follow road norms, traffic signs, highway codes, traffic hazards and related topics,” he added.
Instructions were issued by Kumar to all district-level officers to inform principals through a letter dated August 25. The letter says transport department has expressed concern over increasing number of people killed in road accidents. The department is seeking cooperation of the basic education department to help reduce the number by spreading awareness of adhering to road safety rules.
Now students of basic schools will participate in road safety week organised from time to time. The department wants to educate and sensitise students at an early age so that they may also tell their parents and neighbours to follow road safety norms. A copy of the letter sent by additional transport commissioner VK Sonkiya is also attached with the letter.
According to transport department letter, every year a large number of road accidents occur in the state that results in irreparable loss of life and property. Special emphasis is being laid on road safety by the government to control the number of deaths in these increasing accidents.
The state government has set a target to reduce the number of road accidents and deaths by 7-10 percent in the current year as compared to last year. A Supreme Court committee on road safety is also reviewing the efforts being made by issuing regular instructions to bring down the death toll in road accidents.
The target is to reduce the death toll in road accidents by 50 percent by 2030. To successfully implement the instructions, it is necessary that all the important departments related to road safety make efforts with mutual cooperation.
For this, it is necessary that after analysing and publishing the statistics of road accidents every year, it should be sent to the heads of all the departments to formulate an effective strategy and take concrete action on its basis. The transport department was asked to make efforts and take effective action so that the target set by the government to reduce the number of deaths in road accidents can be achieved.
According to the report “Road Accidents in India 2020” released by the Union ministry of road transport and highways, maximum road accident deaths in the country occurred in Uttar Pradesh in 2020.
Uttar Pradesh alone, according to the report, accounted for 16.4% of the road accident deaths on national highways in India, followed by Maharashtra (7.4%) and Karnataka (6.9%) while Tamil Nadu reported the highest number of accidents on national highways.
The report mentioned that 7,859 people lost their lives in 13,695 road mishaps on highways in U.P. in 2020. The report also showed that 10,492 accidents took place in U.P. in the recorded year, killing 5,984 people on national highways under NHAI, while 1,265 people died in 2,159 mishaps on national highways under PWD. On the national highways (expressways) under other departments, 610 people died in 1,044 accidents.
