CHANDIGARH: The stick-and-carrot strategy, adopted by the Chandigarh Traffic Police to make travel on city’s roads less painful, has clicked. Stepped up challaning of the habitual offenders, coupled with an intensive drive to educate vehicle owners, especially youngsters, on traffic rules, has paid rich dividends and brought the Chandigarh Police a pat on its back.
Resultantly, the number of accidents, both fatal and non-fatal, in Chandigarh came down in 2020 as compared to 2019. Also, a decline in the number of those injured in mishaps and killed. According to police official there has been a decrease of 50 per cent in road accidents in 2020 compared to 2019.
While the number of accidents declined to 159 in 2020 from 305 in 2019. The number of those who died in road accidents came down to 53 in 2020 compared to 104 in 2019 according to the traffic police records. The number of inured also declined from 275 in 2019 to 148 in 2020.
“The Chandigarh Police have been working on a two-pronged strategy. While we are educating people, especially youngsters and imparting them training in traffic rules on the other hand, we are vigilant about traffic rules violations and quite strict with the offenders, ” told a police officer to this reporter.
He further stated that in the recent past the Chandigarh Traffic Police in collaboration with the Chandigarh Education Department has started a unique experiment in educating the residents, especially school students about road safety rules. According to the Annual Review of the Chandigarh Police about over 1.50 lakh persons including students and teachers were educated and imparted training in road safety rules.
Besides, the Chandigarh Traffic Police have been organizing road safety exhibitions/workshops in schools, colleges and at public places as a part of the road safety awareness programme. The education branch also distributed thousands pamphlets/booklets among the people to spread awareness about the road safety rules.
What is more, the traffic police is also celebrating ‘Road Safety Week’ from January 18 to February 17. During this period, from rickshaw puller to car drivers will be aware about the traffic rules. Cyclists will be guided and aware to use cycle track while on bicycle.
Besides, driving license of 166 people were suspended for over speeding in 2019 compared to 6509 in 2020 and up to January this year 724 driving license have been suspended for over speeding.