Bhopal: Traffic management is the need of hour to reduce road accidents. The entire society must come forward to reduce accidents, as number of deaths in Madhya Pradesh is alarming, said ADG, PTRI and traffic Vijay Kataria in the inaugural function of two-day seminar on ‘Road Safety and Traffic Management’ on Monday.
Additional superintendent of police to sub inspector rank officers were called to attend the seminar from all over the state. The seminar was organised with the collaboration of United Spirits and Institute of Road Traffic Education. The initiative will help capacity building, by training 70 traffic police officers in the seminar.
With over 1, 45,000 fatalities a year, India accounts for 12.5 per cent of global road accidents, with one road accident occurring in every four minutes. In the year 2015 alone, 72 per cent victims of road mishaps were in the age group of 15-44 years and almost 97 per cent of the road accidents are caused by negligent driving including drunken driving.
In 2015, Madhya Pradesh reported over 9,314 deaths and approximately 55,815 serious injuries while Bhopal reported over 235 deaths and approximately 2,779 serious injuries due to road accidents.
President of IRTE, Dr Rohit Baluja, said “Road Safety is the backbone of an efficient and safe traffic management system. I would like to compliment and congratulate the Madhya Pradesh Traffic Police for having taken this bold initiative to undertake the capacity building programme for its police force. Such an initiative would definitely reduce road traffic violations and casualties in the same proportion as the application of the initiative.”
Chief strategy and corporate affairs officer, United Spirits, Abanti Sankaranarayanan, informed. “The United Spirits-Diageo ‘Road to Safety’ initiative aims to create the necessary impact to address the abysmal state of road safety in our country. By collaborating with the Madhya Pradesh Traffic Police and IRTE, we aim to take this programme to greater heights by encouraging more people to drink responsibly and put safety first.”
