The Importance of Creating Road Safety Awareness

Road and transport has become an integral part of life, shortening the distance and cutting down the time to travel from one place to another besides improving access to essential commodities and services. Along with the conveniences it brings, travellers face lots of risks. The World Health Organisation estimates that about 1.3 million people die on the roads and 20-50 million people are injured in road accidents every year globally. According to the organisation, road accidents are a major cause of deaths among all age groups and that the likelihood of facing a traffic incident is three times higher in a low-income country than in a high-income country. In India, as many as 80,000 people are killed in road accidents every year. The Indian Ministry of Road Transport and Highways attributes the cause of crashes to carelessness or lack of road safety awareness.

Educating all stakeholders, including traffic police, citizens, drivers, vehicle owners, etc. of road safety is thus crucial to save millions of lives and prevent injuries. For children, homes and schools are the main points of education on road rules, and thus, special workshops should be held in order to appraise them of road danger and the importance of following traffic rules. In conjunction with mass education, road safety laws on speeding, drunken driving, use of seatbelts, child restraints, and motorcycle helmets need to be well enforced. The design of roads in regard to topography must be thoroughly studied and considered, vehicle standards upheld and better emergency care established in order to help prevent accidents and aid victims of road hazards. Pedestrians, cyclists and motorcycle riders are particularly vulnerable on roads and need to be extra cautious.

As Nagaland undergoes major road development works, road safety becomes a crucial factor to consider. Along with departmental checks on road quality and road signs, it is also important for residents to ensure that the roads are made as per the specification; if not, they should report to the authorities. Citizens must also inform authorities in case of waterlogging, plying of abnormally-heavy vehicles and degradation of roads by ill-placed building materials on roadsides. It is a well-known fact that many drivers on Nagaland roads are either without a licence or have procured illegally. This menace needs to be nipped at the earliest and regular checks must be conducted in order to prevent it. In our state, education workshops should be organised not only in schools; a massive campaign is needed to inform the drivers, who are already on the road about, road safety rules and the staggering statistics of ill-fated deaths through ignorance of such rules. Let us not become our own enemies on the road but work together to develop our knowledge and attitude as our road infrastructure improves.