SHILLONG, AUG 18: In line with the draft state road safety policy, which aims at reducing deaths and injuries in road accidents to half by 2020, State Transport Minister HDR Lyngdoh today asked police to be “harsh” against traffic violators and for the DTOs to be strict while issuing driving licenses.
“It is better to be harsh for good otherwise we cannot control injuries and untimely loss of lives due to road accidents,” Lyngdoh said while addressing a Road Safety Advocacy organized by the transport department and deputy commissioner’s office here on Friday.
He suggested the police department to ensure patrolling is intensified against rash driving and checking against traffic violators especially drivers who fails to wear seat belts and helmets (including for pillion riders) besides using mobile phones while driving on the road.
According to him, wearing of seat belt and helmet has to be self regulatory on the part of the public as well as it is important for protecting one’s life from unforeseen fatal accidents.
On the other hand, the minister also dared the commuters to argue with erring drivers for the sake of safety.
“Do not allow drivers to overload and if you see the driver is in inebriated condition, snatch away his car keys and complaint to the police for necessary actions,” he said adding “Because the driver is responsible for the lives of all the occupants.”
Slamming his own department, Lyngdoh said that when issuing of driving licenses, the district transport officers (DTOs) have failed to take proper checking (or conduct test driving of the applicant before issuing of driving license).
“Due to this, many drivers does not even know how to read the traffic signs or they don’t even recognize the signal signs,” he said while directing the DTOs to pulled up their socks and start acting strictly on issuance of driving licenses to applicants.
Stating that the advocacy programme is a wake up call, the minister said there is need to prevent road mishaps as everyone’s life is precious in view that cases of road accidents is quite alarming with 1.78 lakh deaths out of 5 lakh cases reported in the country every year.
In order to achieve the target of minimizing road accidents in the state, Lyngdoh asked the Public Works Department (PWD) to identify roads with potholes and accordingly take up repairing works so that they don’t endanger people’s lives.
Reminding the gathering of a famous phrase “prevention is better than cure”, he said that there is need to also identify landslide prone areas and immediate construct soil erosion protection wall while referring incident of landslides across the state.
Referring to the recent tragic incident killing at least three persons when an old tree fell on top of a taxi they were travelling in, Lyngdoh said that though the slogan of the forest department is to ensure clean and green environment but trees which pose threat to human lives needs to be cut.
“A proper survey should be conducted and trees found to be old and risky should be immediately cut,” he added.
The minister further asked the health department to also submit proposal for setting up of trauma centres along the state and national highways to give timely medical attention to injured patients especially due to road accidents.
“I suggest that proposal for setting up of trauma centres in the state should immediately submitted to the Road Safety Council (under his chairmanship) which will take up the matter with the National Health Mission (NHM) for necessary funding,” he said.
Held under the theme – “Your safety, secures your family – be cautious on roads”, the advocacy was also attended by students from the different schools in the city, whom the minister have urged to be ambassadors to spread the awareness on the importance of road safety.
Later the minister also administered the Traffic Pledge to the crowd in the gathering and later flagged off a rally by the students as part of creating awareness on road safety.
By Our Reporter
+ There are no comments
Add yours