Chennai, Aug 9 (UNI) The IIT Madras’ Centre of Excellence for Road Safety hosted ‘Zero Accident Day’ (ZAD) Campaign in partnership with Greater Chennai Traffic Police on Friday.
It is a 20-day comprehensive road safety campaign aiming to achieve zero road accidents, improve road safety awareness among drivers and promote responsible driving practices.
The road network in India has grown at a rate of 59% in the past nine years and stands as second
in the world with the largest road network of 66.71 lakh km as of 2023.
Every year, the country loses an average of 1,50,000 people to road accidents, of whom 25% of people are under 25 years old and 89% of people are under 60 years old.
These are the productive working population of India, leading to a tremendous socio-economic loss for families, society and the Nation.
The Centre of Excellence for Road Safety, IIT Madras, is working with the Greater Chennai Traffic Police (GCTP) on multiple capacity and capability improvement programs.
As many as 69 investigating officers (IOs) have been upskilled in performing scientific crash investigations to identify the root causes of the crashes. A total of 40 children and 80 schoolteachers and parents were introduced to gamified activity-based learning of road safety to improve their knowledge and cognition on being an informed road user, a release from IIT-Madras said.
The awareness campaign for ZAD was inaugurated at the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) Depot by R Sudhakar, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic), GCTP, in the presence of Dr Alby John Varghese, Managing Director, Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC), Professor Venkatesh Balasubramanian, Head, CoERS, IIT Madras, Bandi Gangadhar, Deputy Commissioner of Police, (Traffic) South, P Kumar, Deputy Commissioner of Police, (Traffic) North, and V Baskaran, Deputy Commissioner of Police, (Traffic) East.
CoERS organized capacity building workshops at IIT Madras to drive activity-based learning (ABL) on road safety rules, signages and etiquette for MTC bus drivers, school children, teachers and traffic wardens. In Addition, GCTP has engineered several initiatives at community level, such as engaging the vibrant youth as stakeholders, by means of a reel making competition, and several flashmobs are part of the campaign.
Programmes are also underway to engage other sections of society including sensitising e-commerce platforms and their staff, IT firms, and engagements with hospitals, auto-rickshaw drivers, residential associations and slums. Activities to incentivise compliance with road rules such as traffic signal, seatbelts, helmets and stop line programmes are also a part of ZAD campaign.
Speaking on the occasion, Prof. V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, said, “At IIT Madras, we believe
in providing solutions to everyday problems that plague our society. Road safety is matter of vital importance, given its long-term implications on the socio-economic status of accident victims.
"Bringing down road crash fatalities is a crucial step in increasing the standard of living in our
country. We are hopeful that this initiative by CoERS, IIT Madras and GCTP will yield positive
results by enabling the required mind set change among the general public. We need more
such awareness programmes to sensitise road users on safe driving practices”, he said.
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