National Road Safety Week – The pedestrian comes first

The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) and the Ministry of Roads, Transport and Highways (MoRTH) started the new year with a ‘Walk for Safety’ initiative, focusing on the issue of pedestrian safety. The ‘Walk for Safety’ saw participation of a number of government officials and students. The walk that began at India Gate and ended at Shastri Bhavan was flagged off by Nitin Gadkari, Minister of MoRTH.

Last year, the accident rate increased by 4.6 per cent over 2015 and out of the recorded five lakh accidents, around 1.5 lakh people lost their lives. Addressing this problem, SIAM proposed to organise various awareness programs across the 4,200 automobile dealerships, which will include training workshops for drivers and riders, discussions on road safety in schools and colleges, and a number of activities that will highlight the importance of road safety. MoRTH have also stepped in to build safer roads with better engineering, signage and crash barriers. They will also launch two android based apps, E-Challan – the digital solution for enforcement of traffic rules and M-Parivahan – an app that stores a digital copy of your licence and registration certificate, and other transport related documents eliminating the need to carry them physically.

Manufacturers have also followed suit, Renault and Chevrolet have launched their own campaigns in association with SIAM to spread awareness about the importance of road safety among the masses and their customers.

Renault India have organised a Safety Week from the 9^th of Jan to the 15^th of Jan 2017, wherein Renault will organise various awareness campaigns across all their dealerships in the country. This campaign will focus on educating students on the need to adhere to traffic rules through a number of workshops and activities. Renault will play safety films at all their customer lounges and will also interact with all their customers to promote awareness on road safety. Further, Renault has announced that customers visiting Renault dealerships during the ‘Road Safety Week’ can avail of discounts on purchase of braking parts, tyres and safety accessories.

Chevrolet launched their ‘Drive with Care Campaign’ last year, which got a lot of positive social media engagement. In lieu with the ‘National Safety Week’ Chevrolet has organised a social media campaign on their Facebook and Twitter pages, wherein users make promises to ensure road safety using the hashtags #IPromiseTo and #DriveWithCare. The company will also organise various on-ground activities across their 14 dealerships in the country from the 9^th Jan to 15^th Jan 2017. Chevrolet representatives will interact with customers to educate them on driving technique and etiquette.

Mahindra have partnered with SIAM to participate in the ‘Road Safety Week’ spreading awareness on the basic principles on road safety.  The company has organised various activities such as a road safety awareness campaign for dealer staff, a workshop to educate drivers on the importance of road safety and spreading awareness among children through a drawing competition, on the positive impacts of road safety. Around 450 Mahindra dealerships  across India engaged in this safety initiative.

Volkswagen has partnered with Hubert Ebner (HE), the training partner for the company’s road safety initiative, which organised a series of educational sessions for children in class VIII and IX, in different schools on the importance of following traffic rules, the different types of road behavior, understanding road signs and various precautions one should take while walking and driving on the road, as part of the ‘Road Safety Week’ organised by SIAM.  This program will be sustained throughout the year and will aim to engage over 1000 students.