Before the flick, learn a lesson in road safety

From July, each time you go to the cinema hall to watch a flick, you will get a lesson in road safety. Two films on road safety, Afsos and Ehasas, will be released to all the cinema halls in Delhi. Before the any commercial movie, the cinemas will show these movies.

From July, each time you go to the cinema hall to watch a flick, you will get a lesson in road safety. Two films on road safety, Afsos and Ehasas, will be released to all the cinema halls in Delhi. Before the any commercial movie, the cinemas will show these movies.

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While Ehasas is a short film on drunken driving, Afsos is on the Supreme Court’s judgment to quickly shift the accident victims to a hospital by anyone without any fear of police harassment.

“We recently made these two films and a number of promos on road safety education as part of our national campaign to reduce road fatalities by 50 per cent by 2012,” said K.K. Kapila, chairman, International Road Federation (IRF).

Considering the magnitude of the problem of road accidents and their devastating effect on society, the ministry of Road Transport and Highways, in association with IRF, has launched the campaign recently.

The IRF is also getting adequate support from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (IB) which recently wrote to the chief secretary, Delhi, and other states to advise all cinema halls to show the road safety films before screening commercial films. The ministry has also asked the states to display hoardings on road safety rules, dos and don’ts at important locations, preferably in government buildings, railway stations, bus stations, airports.

Rakesh Mehta, Chief Secretary, Delhi Government, said: “We have got a letter from Ministry of IB. Talks are on with cinema halls and multiplexes in the city to show these flims from July.”

Sources in the Delhi Government said that to start with, the two films, which have already been made, will be screened and subsequently more films will be added once these are made by the Ministry of IB and IRF and handed over to the government. Hoardings will also be put up at strategic locations during July, they added.