Drunk-driving, cell phone-driving major causes for road accidents

Vijayawada: Deputy Transport Commissioner A Mohan underscored the importance of participation of people in spreading awareness on road safety and avoiding accidents.

Announcing the inauguration of road safety month celebrations at the Transport department office here on Friday, Mohan said that the celebrations were meant for bringing awareness among people regarding road safety.

Addressing the media, he said that the celebrations would bring awareness among people about road safety and inform them about the Motor Vehicle Acts. The accidents could be effectively curbed with coordination and cooperation of the police, medical and health, R&B, national highways and voluntary service organisations. However, the accidents could be more effectively avoided with the people getting enlightened.

In order to avoid accidents, several measures like compulsory seat belts and helmets were already taken. Action would be taken against traffic violators as per law. Special awareness campaigns were launched for lorry and bus drivers to make them adhere to the traffic rules.

Referring to the number of accidents, Mohan said that there were 1,343 accidents that occurred last year in the district in which 431 people were killed and 1,159 sustained injuries.

According to him, drunk-driving and cell phone-driving were the major causes behind road accidents. In spite of the efforts to curb overloading, rash driving, signal jumping, accidents are still taking place.

As part of the celebrations, rallies would be taken out throughout the district, awareness camps for the drivers, essay writing, drawing competitions for school children would be conducted. In addition, campaigns would be launched in schools and colleges to bring awareness among students where they would be shown short films on the cause of accidents.

The short films depict how people are losing their family members due to the minor mistakes they commit while driving the vehicles.

Later, the officials released the posters of ‘Good Samaritan’ on road safety.

Transport officials R Pravin, K Venkateswara Rao, K Sivaram Gowd, Satyanarayana, Abdul Sattar and Transport Employees Association zonal president M Rajubabu also participated.