Noida: Traffic police set up road safety cell to prevent accidents

Noida: The Gautam Budh Nagar traffic police on Thursday set up a road safety cell for better management of traffic-related issues and preventing accidents

Noida: The Gautam Budh Nagar traffic police on Thursday set up a road safety cell for better management of traffic-related issues and preventing accidents. With a dedicated team of eight officials led by a traffic inspector, the safety cell will coordinate with different departments and civil society members to help make the roads safer.

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Ganesh Saha, deputy commissioner of police (traffic), GB Nagar, said that most of the accidents take place as commuters fail to obey traffic rules. “We have developed the road safety cell which will coordinate with different departments related to traffic and also create awareness among the public and the road users,” he said.

The safety cell will also coordinate with different NGOs, resident welfare associations, and market associations to deal with the traffic problems effectively, he said, adding that a dedicated mobile phone number will soon be issued to contact the cell.

“The cell will work every day. It will organise workshops for the drivers of commercial and public vehicles such as buses, trucks, auto rickshaws, etc. The cell will also organise awareness programme in schools, colleges and other educational institutions,” Saha said.

According to the GB Nagar traffic police data, as many as 358 people died while 240 were injured in 442 accidents in the district from January 1- September 15 last year. Rohit Baluja, director, Institute of Road Safety Education, in a programme of road safety month – November 2020 – had said that as per the National Crime Records Bureau, every year around 23,000 people die and 28,000 others are injured in road accidents in Uttar Pradesh only.

Anurag Kulshrestha, president of TRAX, an NGO working towards road safety, is an advisor to the road safety cell. Kulshrestha said that a number of fatalities take place due to poor qualities of helmets used by two-wheeler riders. He also demonstrated this at the event by placing some sub-standard helmets on a table and hitting them with a hammer, which were damaged with one blow.

The DCP (traffic) said that the traffic police will soon run a drive and take action against the seller and manufacturers of sub-standard helmets in GB Nagar. “We will take action leading to an FIR,” he said.

Kajal Kumari, a student of Shyam Singh Smarak Inter College, Sarfabad, also attended the programme with her classmates and NCC cadets. “I also used the hammer to break a sub-standard helmet. I have learnt that road safety is very important and people should buy good quality helmets,” she said.