As part of the ongoing Road Safety Week, the Regional Transport Office at Dehradun conducted a free driving training programme. People who visited the RTO for various department related works were offered free driving training by the RTO officials.
The RTO at Dehradun in association with the traffic police organised several awareness camps in the State capital. Various checking drives were also organised at several places in the town. Additional Regional Transport Officer (ARTO) (Enforcement), RP Rathore, stressed that this is just a move to raise public awareness about traffic rules and the importance of driving safely. The drive was conducted at several major places including Clock Tower, Rajpur Road, Survey Chowk on Tuesday.
During the checking drive, the traffic violators who were found flouting any traffic rule by drinking and driving, using mobile phones while driving, triple-riding, driving without helmets and other similar offences, were penalised by the police personnel, said Rathore. He informed that two teams of the RTO officials were formed to conduct the checking drive along with the police personnel at various places in the town. Around 25 challans have been imposed since the Road Safety Week was started on January 11.
He also informed that various other awareness programmes would be organised at the RTO on Wednesday. Under this awareness programme, visitors would be informed about the important traffic rules to be followed while driving through a powerpoint presentation in the programme.
When asked how the RTO officials were managing the checking drive in absence of necessary equipments like alco-meter and interceptors, Rathore admitted that the RTO was lacking all the necessary equipments and was currently conducting the checking drive with assistance from the traffic police. He said that RTO has no alco-meter and has taken it from the police department. It is pertinent to mention here that the Road Safety Week is being conducted jointly by the RTO and police.