Road safety programme launched
Mayor R. Venkatachalam addressing a seminar on road safety organised by the Rotary Club of Coimbatore Saicity in the city.Coimbatore: The Rotary Club of Coimbatore Saicity inaugurated Suraksha – Advanced Training Programme for Licensed Drivers at its district seminar on road safety programme recently.Coimbatore Mayor R. Venkatachalam inaugurated the seminar and stressed the need for imparting road sense and discipline to road users to end the increasing number of fatal accidents.Baljinder S. Grewal, Country Head for Hubert Ebner (India) Private Limited, an Indo-Austrian joint venture set up to address the issue of road safety in India, presented the project details. The firm has over 30 years experience in creating and conducting road safety programmes. Rotary Coimbatore Saicity said that the advanced training programme had been arranged for 10 days in five batches. Each batch with 20 licensed drivers would go through the training for two days.The training would be useful for drivers with minimum experience.With liberalisation and consequent economic boom, the mobility of Indian population had increased and the automobile industry had made rapid strides to cope with the growing demand.As a sequel, the unmanageable growth of traffic with high speed vehicles was taking a heavy toll on human life every day.
There was a general perception that by inculcating principles of road rules and a sense of safe driving in the minds of drivers, road accidents could be minimised.According to an article in Rotary News, as many as 12,75,000 people were victims of road accidents every year in India.Driving, which has become a part of life for many, had become more risky.District Governor of Rotary L. Narayanswamy, presiding over the function, pointed out that to contribute its mite towards safe roads, the Rotary had included the road safety programme in the ambitious District Project Programme.Rotary Club of Coimbatore Saicity president D.R. Sekar, project chairman P.R. Suresh and secretary V. Gopalakrishnan took part in the programme.
