In a country ridiculed with road hazards and incidents, Mercedes-Benz’ ‘Safe Roads’ initiative aims to create awareness in road safety and reduce accidents in India. The third edition of the summit was organised in presence of Nitin Gadkari, Minister for Road Transport & Highways, in New Delhi. Mercedes-Benz has organised road shows to promote safety in more than 8 cities including Pune, Kochi and Kolkata in the last two years.
Road fatalities claim more than 150,000 lives every year as road users don’t follow the rules and majority of people still don’t use the safety systems on board their vehicles properly. The Ministry for Road Transport & Highways also released shocking statistics of 27 children being killed every day because of road accidents. Hence the theme for this year’s summit was aimed to create awareness on child safety on roads as they are more vulnerable to accidents. Tougher safety rules and education to create awareness on road safety will help to reduce the fatalities on road by 70 per cent by the year 2025, according to Mercedes-Benz.
The event was attended by as much as 300 school students and 200 college students from New Delhi and they were given “First Responder Training” by the Indian Head Injury Foundation, to help out the victims swiftly in such a scenario. The attendees were imparted with the knowledge of importance of seat belts, child safety seats and their proper usage, how airbags can kill young children riding in front seat, how children aged 12 and below should ride in the back seat with proper buckling, safety demos in Mercedes-Benz C-Class and E-Class sedans and the ill effects of drinking and driving. All these demos were done using exhibits imported from Germany.
Speaking at the event, Mr Nitin Gadkari expressed the government’s vision of reducing the fatalities on road by 50 per cent by the year 2020. He also stressed the need for trained drivers and the government’s plan to set up 2000 driver training institutes across the country, out of which 100 have been set up. These driver training centres will be focussed mostly on rural and tribal areas to increase awareness.
“The ‘Safe Roads’ initiative that was flagged off two years ago has been phenomenal. Considering the rate of accidents on Indian roads has been alarming and undoubtedly it becomes our moral responsibility to do our bit to reduce this. There will never be a compromise on safety as Mercedes- Benz marque firmly believes in the principle of safety first”, said Roland Folger, MD and CEO, Mercedes-Benz India, at the event.