Catching them young to teach key road-safety lessons

BENGALURU: On Wednesday, Sayandeep Basu, reached Delhi Public School in Yelahanka as usual, but what awaited him there was a bagful of surprises. The class 5 student stepped on to the campus to see an artificial zebra crossing, traffic lights, Volvo buses and trucks parked on the playground. He almost felt he was on the main road. There were more surprises in store when Sayandeep and his friends were taken for a bus ride to learn about the blind spot of a vehicle and ways to ensure safety on the road. The best lesson he learnt: How to make himself visible to a bus driver while crossing a busy road.


“This workshop taught me the use of three magical words for road safety ­ `Stop, Look and Wave'. Now I know, it's not safe enough to cross the road by checking both sides, because even though I can see a vehicle coming to wards me, the driver might miss and hit me. l'm aware of the road rules to be followed, especially by children,“ said Mariyam Afreen, 10, another student.


Children are usually advised to look right first, then left and again to the right before crossing a road. But not many are aware of the perspective of a vehicle driver to ensure road safety. Volvo India's three-day workshop from Wednesday to Friday aims to cover this aspect and train 3,000 children from classes 3 to 8 in the city on safety guidelines.


As part of the global campaign ­ Stop, Look and Wave ­ which aims to train 10,000 children by the end of this year, the organizers have already trained 2,500 children from across India.


“We are sensitizing youngsters that it's important for them to make sure drivers are able to see them and they can also see the driver. This one aspect can help avoid many accidents. Also, all vehicles have blind zones and hence children should know how to make themselves visible to drivers. After complet ing one round of the workshop in south India, we will move to the northern states,“ Kamal Bali, managing director of Volvo India, said.


The workshop was conducted in the form of a narration from a driver's life.“For all young people, we chose the path of making them understand what it is like to be a driver and how a driver sees traffic around him to make it easy for children to understand safety measures quickly. We also educated them on vehicles, their sizes, dimensions and weight and how difficult it is for a driver to tackle a large vehicle on the road. This helped children inculcate some respect for drivers and understand the need to take care of themselves,“ Kamal added.


The workshop included a 40-minute presentation on highlights of traffic management through an animated movie on the life of a driver followed by a practical demostration where children were made to board a bus or a truck and act according to traffic guidelines before an artificial zebra crossing and traffic lights.