Ae bhai zara dekh ke chalo

There are many proud owners of a Royal Enfield Bullet. But Venkat Rao’s bike always made people’s head turn. Venkat has been on a spree to spread the message of traffic safety. He raises awareness using his bullet in a rather unique fashion.

P Venkat Rao(64) is a resident of Bowenpally and an ex-army personnel. He participated in various camps conducted by the govt agencies and NGOs who were working for the cause of bringing down the rate of road accidents and for the safety of the lives of the commuters.

In 2006, Venkat Rao had taken up a novel initiative to spread the message of traffic safety and its awareness. Venkat fancied riding bigger motorcycles and loved to drive a Bullet (Royal Enfield). That’s when he chanced upon the novel idea to help the police in spreading the message of traffic safety and raising its awareness to the general public.

While driving his bullet on the road he wanted to attract the attention of the commuters and the only way was to make his bullet look special, so that he could campaign for the cause of the traffic safety and it awareness. He started spending for additional accessories and fittings which highlight the safety norms, precautions and the rules to be followed.

Venkat accessorised his bike with a compass for directions, bomb detector gadget of upto 500 metres of range, GPS, wheel cap, strong and attractive mudguards both at front and rear, wind velocity anemometer, Ganesh and Lakshmi pictures with bells for good omen, fog and search lights, double silencer, 3 steel butterflies, navagraha gem stones on the petrol tank, attractive luggage carrier's on either side, special belt for waist and helmet for head, front steel crash guard and small illumination ornamental lighting in the nights. Venkat bullet costed Rs 1.40 lakh while he spent Rs 1.75 lakh for the accessories with a mission to raise traffic safety and its awareness. More than 35,000 pictures of Venkat are posted on Facebook.

He said, his 2006 model of Royal Enfield Bullet (350 cc engine) with 60 litres tank capacity gives 35 kms per litre on normal road conditions and could touch a speed of 120 kmph.

Venkat makes sure he participates in all the traffic awareness campaigns conducted by the City Traffic Police, govt and NGOs and also participate in Independence Day and Republic Day events to spread the message of traffic safety.

Venkat always reiterates many examples of the phrase ‘Speed Thrills but Kills’. “Children of Kota Srinivasa Rao, Mohd Azharuddin, Komati Venkat Reddy and in many other cases, there were victims whose lives were lost due to over speeding.

Please give way to pedestrians, particularly seniors, women and children while on the roads and follow the traffic rules keeping in mind their families children and dependents”, said Venkat.