Road Safety – A Unique Approach of Mumbai Traffic Police
According to the UN Sustainable Development Goal 3.6, the countries of the world need to strive to reduce the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents by 50 per cent by 2030.
Status of Road Safety in India
Road safety continues to be a major developmental issue, a public health concern and a leading cause of death and injury across the world. It kills more than 1.35 million globally as reported in the Global Status report on Road Safety 2018 with 90% of these casualties taking place in the developing countries and 11% alone being accounted for by India. As per the Report on Road accidents in India 2019, the accident-related deaths in India in 2019 were 1,51,113 in number.
Unique Approach of Mumbai Traffic Police
In a crackdown on helmetless bikers, local traffic police issued 15,609 penalties for riding without a helmet in the last ten days and forwarded 2,446 requests for licence suspension to the Regional Transport Officers (RTO).
When a rider is detected without a helmet, the officers issue an e-challan, and once the form-A is filled out, they submit a request to the RTOs to suspend the violator’s licence for three months, according to Raj Tilak Roushan, deputy commissioner of police (Traffic HQ).
Out of the penalised motorcyclists, 3951 were given form A to fill out and were instructed to go to the nearest traffic police station and spend two hours watching awareness videos about the dangers of riding without a helmet.
However, only 1,947 bikers out of the 3951 were given form-B as an acknowledgement that they had watched the videos.
Roushan said that on average, every day they had been penalising at least 1200 two-wheeler riders for the offence. “The videos have been a part of the awareness campaign depicting consequences of helmetless riding,” said Roushan.
If a rider does not turn up to watch the videos, the traffic police have begun sending reminders to him via text messages to attend the session.
Roushan stated that they are currently writing to schools and colleges to raise awareness about helmetless riding and observing traffic regulations among youngsters so that they are aware of the repercussions and can explain them to their parents if they are caught breaking the rules.
The unique approach by the city police is applaud-worthy as its approach is not just punitive but is also reformative in nature.
Disclaimer: The story was originally published in Hindustan Times and the content is fetched from the same story.
