Teachers on road safety education

Updated on: Thursday, April 05, 2012

In the face of increasing number of deaths due to road accidents, the government said school teachers will be educating students on road safety.
   
Road Transport & Highways Minister C P Joshi said, "Starting from the current financial year, we will be imparting programmes on road safety for teachers so that they can transfer the knowledge on road safety to thousands of students."
   
Speaking at a "National Workshop on Road Safety" here, he said: "We are also going to standardise road safety materials for the school children for distribution in schools adjoining national highways".
   
The number of people succumbing to injuries in road accidents is on the rise with 1.34 lakh deaths in 2010 (over 367 deaths per day). This is compared to 1.23 lakh deaths in the preceding year.
   
"I am pained to know that during the year 2010, there were around five lakh road accidents resulting in death of over 1.34 lakh people," Joshi said adding.
   
Motorists, cyclists, pedestrians and users of other non-motorised vehicles accounted for around 40 per cent of the fatalities, the Minister said.
   
He said accidents were taking place despite government's efforts to educate road users on the need to adhere to road discipline.
   
Joshi said the government was trying to curb over speeding and drunken driving by amending the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.
   
"The Cabinet has approved it with amendments on March 1 this year. The Bill will now be considered in Rajya Sabha during the current Budget session," he said.
   
The draft amendment bill provides for stringent penalties for the offence of drunken driving. The severity of the penalty is to be linked to the extent of alcohol present in blood.
   
It has also proposed higher penalties for repeated offences and over-speeding.    

"In future, there will be graded penalties for the offence of over-speeding also. This will be linked to the extent by which the maximum speed limit has been exceeded," Joshi said.

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