SIAM kick-starts National Road Safety Week

Apex industry body Society of Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) kick-started the Road Safety Week campaign at India Gate yesterday. This year’s event on the theme ‘Sadak Suraksha – Jeevan Raksha’ has been organised in association with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Government of India (MoRTH) and Delhi Traffic Police.

The day started off with the Delhi traffic police walkathon with 1,000 students at India Gate and a street theatre on road safety. It was followed by the inauguration ceremony of the National Road Safety Week which commemorated the 150^th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. 

SIAM also launched the Indian automobile industry’s initiative of declaring 2019-2020 as National Road Safety Year in presence of Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport & Highways, Shipping and Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation, Government of India and Sushma Swaraj, Minister of External Affairs of India. The ministers then flagged off a motor rally to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. Supported by Kanishka Sports and Mahindra & Mahindra, the rally starting from Rajghat is scheduled to conclude in 22 days covering 7,250 kilometres.

Sugato Sen, deputy director general, SIAM said, ‘’There have been several measures taken to bring down the rate of road fatalities in India but yet, there has been not much of improvement. In order to change the bleak picture of road safety in our country, we aim to identify the steps and areas which are really helping in bringing down the number of road fatalities and concentrate on those. SIAM along with its members would be observing 2019-2020 as National Road Safety Year and will try to bring some best practices which can bring down the fatalities rate on our roads.”

After taking the road safety pledge,  Nitin Gadkari said “We are connecting the nation through tunnels, bridges, roads and highways, but our main target is to bring down the death count happening because of road accidents. Approximately 150,000 people die in nearly 500,000 road accidents every year in India. Around 48 percent of these fatalities happen to be in the age bracket between 18 and 35years. We aim to drastically cut down the figures and change this scenario. We are taking various initiatives including awareness campaigns like this, identifying black spots of accidents and seeking people’s co-operation. I would appeal to everyone to participate in this road safety initiative.”

“It’s important to follow Gandhiji’s principles of peace, patience and tolerance in the case of road safety as well. Else whatever steps are taken or rules created, the situation of road rage, careless driving and accident scenarios won’t change,” said Sushma Swaraj.

The week-long initiative will have road safety driver training, health and eye check-up camps for drivers at 20 trucker hubs in India, a road safety workshop organised by the Ministry in every city participating in the event along with the other programs. A Seminar on Emerging Trends of Road Safety supported by the secretary of MoRTH and special commissioner of police has also been organised at India Habitat Centre which aims to provide training, technical and brainstorming sessions to the people.