Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
In a bid to raise awareness about road safety, the Greater Chennai Traffic Police (GCTP) Wednesday launched an initiative ‘Neenga Road Raja Va?’ (Are you the king of the road).
As part of the initiative, short films directed by Vignesh Shivan were released and the films featured traffic violations like wrong-side driving, dangerous driving, making a U-turn at a signal where it is prohibited, not following zebra crossing guidelines among others. The short films urged commuters to follow traffic rules and click a photograph upon spotting a violator, post it on X tagging @RoadRaja, as it will lead to the police initiating action against the person.
As per the police statement, due to the various initiatives of the city police like automation of e-challans and awareness measures, there has been a decline in fatal accidents in GCTP limits.
“The number of fatal accidents has been significantly reduced in 2023. Chennai is the only city in India to witness such decline and has dropped to 4th place from 1st place in terms of fatality rate,” the statement read.
As per the data issued by the city police, the number of fatal deaths in the city in 2021 was 573 and it reduced to 204 in 2023. It was noted that out of the total deaths, 279 fatal deaths occurred due to riding without helmets (close to 50 per cent of total deaths) in 2023 and it reduced to 196 in 2023.
The police said that in 2023, as many as 60,181 cases were registered against commuters for wrong-way driving. The police had been conducting road safety programmes in schools as well. As per the claim, such programmes were conducted in 100 such schools so far and there were 7,200 participants to create road safety awareness.
Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram
