In a bid to equip the motorists with road safety tips, the Chandigarh Administration is all set to launch a road safety manual in the city.
The road safety manual will be given to the applicants of learner’s license at the UT Registering and Licensing Authority here.
Prepared to promote road safety, the 200-page manual will equip the readers with necessary information on the traffic rules and regulations, penalty for offenders, magnitude of pedestrian death and injury in the country, how to handle emergencies situations like tyre burst, post crash management and key risk factors like speed, alcohol, mobile among others.
Apart from this, the manual with illustrations also stresses on road safety rules when approaching a roundabout, controlled or uncontrolled intersections, significance of road signs and markings, rules for parking, highway driving and procedure to get the driving license.
The manual has been designed by Harman Singh Sidhu, president of Chandigarh based NGO-ArriveSAFE in coordination with Chandigarh Transport Department and Traffic Police and would be available in three languages including Hindi, English and Punjabi.Sidhu is also the member of Road Safety Council, Chandigarh.
Notably, as many as 96 people including 27 pedestrians died due in road accidents in Chandigarh last year while in 2018, 98 people including 35 pedestrians were killed due to road accidents in the city. “The road safety manual would be an official handbook which contains the do’s and don’ts guiding people how to use public roads safely.
It is a first of its kind in the country,” said Harman Singh Sidhu said while talking to The Pioneer.
Elaborating on the manual, he said that it would be given to the applicants of learner’s license alongwith the application. It would be mandatory to buy the manual, which would serve as one stop source information and soft skills required for safe road-use.
It has been developed as a source that allows novice road users to gain knowledge, he said.For instance, the rules of ‘Right of Way’ i.e. who has the right to go first in any situation is not explained to the road users. Such rules have also been included in it, he further said.
“A picture is worth a thousand words” and the handbook has been drafted in such a way so that even a less educated person can understand it easily, Sidhu added.
Besides introducing a road safety manual, the Administration has also decided to include road safety education in the school curriculum from next academic session in the city.
As per the data with UT Traffic Police, a total of 316 road accidents were reported in 2018, out of which 294 were due to rash driving, 12 were caused due to drunken driving and 10 due to red light jumping. In 2017, 342 road accidents and 107 fatalities were reported while the number of accidents was 428 and fatalities were 151 in 2016.
The UT Traffic Police had identified 11 black spots in view of maximum road accidents in the city. Some of these spots included Airport Light point to CRPF campus Hallomajra, Poultry Farm Chowk to BSNL turn on Dakshin Marg, Sector 29 Tribune roundabout on Dakshin Marg, Kalagram light point on Madhya Marg.
