E-Paper
Schoolchildren to be part of family traffic cop in Navi Mumbai
Children will help traffic police in educating their families in following traffic rules.
Children will help traffic police in educating their families in following traffic rules.
Navi Mumbai traffic police launched ‘family traffic cop’ programme to rope in schoolchildren to help reduce traffic violations.
The young ‘cops’ will be demoted if their family vehicles are found to be involved in offences.
“In 2018, a total of 258 people died in road accidents. Around 40 people were murdered. If the murders reached the figure of road accidents, I may not remain the police commissioner. But there is little reaction on accidents from the society,” said Navi Mumbai police commissioner Sanjay Kumar, while launching the programme along with the city traffic police department and the Panvel Regional Transport Office.
The police have compiled a book which contains basic road safety information. The book will be made available to students from Class 6 to 8. They will appear for a road safety exam, and if they clear it, they will be given a pass, a badge and a certificate and they would be designated ‘family traffic cop’.
The ‘cops’ will then give details of the vehicles in their family. The children will get the letter every time the vehicles flout a rule. If there are three violations in a family, the family traffic ‘cop’ will lose the cap. If there is no violation for a year, then they will be rewarded with promotions. Starting with a red badge, they can be promoted to an amber badge and then green badge designed after the traffic signal lights.
Kumar said that every day 13,000 trucks and containers reach Mumbai from JNPT plus 1 lakh transit vehicles. Navi Mumbai has a vehicle population of 10 lakh and every year 84,000 vehicles are added on the roads, the length of which is only 918 kms. The police are also looking at a likely explosion in vehicle numbers as residents are not discarding old vehicles as quick as they are buying new ones.
The police also launched the traffic education van which will be sent to schools with pre-recorded messages about road safety.
Panvel’s regional transport officer Laxman Darade, said, “80% of accidents can be avoided if we follow basic road rules. We found 29% of accident victims who died last year were sole breadwinners of the family. India incurs a ₹7,000-crore loss due to accidents. At 25% decrease, Raigad ranks first in Maharashtra in accident reduction.”
