Our society has given us enough and it’s time we give something back to the society. The fact that social problems are haunting us and our lives day and night, we ourselves overtly or covertly add on to the list of these social issues. Terrorism, poverty, pollution are some of the problems which are discussed at a larger platform but there is an issue such as road safety which needs to be looked at, as equally as the bigger problems.

Women Planet along with Safetykart and Yobykes had organized a Road safety week to ensure the safety of its people. The team would truly like to thank all its supporters and sponsors. The students of Gujarat Institute of Hotel Management (GIHM) enthusiastically took part in the event and helped us make it successful. We feel fortunate and grateful. However, our experiences during the Road Safety week showed us both, highs and lows of road and traffic safety.

Students making public awareness during Road Safety Week

It was evening time, when people were going back home from their workplace all tired and in a hurry to reach back as early as possible. But wait! No one knows if they will reach back safely with that high speed and with no helmets or seat-belts on. This is what we observed on a few days of our road safety week an initiative taken by us to make people aware about the traffic rules and also make them understand how precious their life was. What we found was that in-spite of the presence of traffic police and traffic signals people were least bothered to abide by the rules.

When we asked A. G. Mahida, ASI to put his inputs to such miserable condition of traffic sense among the people, this is what he had to say – “There is no sense and discipline on road. People need to improve on that front. Even the staff is limited and not all circles or cross roads have our members. In fact, if you think of an ideal situation, there should not be any need of a traffic police controlling the traffic as people themselves should be responsible. My personal experience says that there was a very good traffic sense among the people of Chennai.”

Well indeed he was true. Rules are made to be followed and not to break. The moment signal shows the yellow mark or asks us to stop, few people would still escape ignoring the fact that it might create the misunderstanding for the people coming from opposite direction. We even found out that the concept of lane driving is not evident among the citizens here which again might create chaos. The hooting cars and honking bikes will definitely make us go deaf one day. The amount of noise pollution taking place on the road is in-measurable.

A responsible citizen Sujata Sinha, 28 was found wearing helmet and using all the indicators and signals was asked about the traffic sense of people around her. She says, “I personally follow all the rules but people around me mostly do not. This would one day affect me for sure. I think traffic police should become stricter and act accordingly.” True, the innocent ones or the ones who follow rules already are or might soon become the victims of road accidents due to the rash drivers.

Traffic police distributing gift coupons to people who follow traffic rules.

Road safety is a community issue. One simply might lose his/her life anytime on road. During the Road Safety week, we just joined our hands together to create an opportunity for local people to get together and ‘tune in to road safety’ with a motto to put end to the road deaths and injuries in a particular region. Now, its time for each one of you to follow traffic rules and join hands for a chaos free and accident free society.