'Adopt villages, colonies to spread awareness about traffic rules'

Jaipur: Transport minister Yunus Khan on Saturday asked the civil society to adopt villages and muhallas to educate them about the traffic rules aiming to minimize the rate of accidents in the state.
While delivering his keynote address at the conference 'Dimensions of Road Safety' organized by the transport department in association with Muskaan in the city on Saturday, he said, "Even individuals with fair knowledge of traffic rules can contribute by inviting and reaching out to people in the neighbourhood and educating them on the traffic rules.It is learnt that several accidents took place due to ignorance about the road safety measures".
Quoting some studies, he said that accidents are coughing up 3.5% of the country's GDP besides causing an irreparable loss of human resource. also asked the NGOs to play a vital role in creating awareness on the traffic rules.
Describing the areas where the department is working, principal secretary of transport department, Pawan Kumar Goyal, said, "Our focus is on the 4 'E's and 1 'A' like engineering, education, enforcement, emergency, and alignment. The department is putting earnest efforts to ensure that traffic awareness reaches every gram panchayat".
Chairman of road safety, International Road Federation, K K Kapila said their target was reducing road accidents by 50% in the coming years. said, "Reflectors on bicycles, gadgets to detect drunk drivers and ratings of vehicles on the basis of how accident proof they are, etc. are some of the remedial measures. If these remedial measures are implemented, I am sure we will achieve the target," said Kapila.
The shortcomings in the Motor Vehicle Act were also discussed with special reference to road accident case of Bollywood actor Salman Khan.