The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Seminar to analyse global trends in road safety

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 09, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Seminar to analyse global trends in road safety

Staff Reporter

More highways are coming up and vehicle population is increasing in the country, say organisers

CURTAIN RAISER: Jaya Padmanaban, president JP Research, INC, making a point about the road safety seminar in Chennai on Tuesday. — Photo: N. Sridharan

CHENNAI : A seminar on `Emerging Global Trends in Road Safety' will be organised at Mahabalipuram on Saturday.

Jaya Padmanaban, president, JP Research Inc., California, one of the organisers of the programme, said that issues concerning road safety would be discussed at the seminar.

Fifth Generation Technologies is co-hosting the event.

Explaining the reasons for conducting a seminar in India, she said that more highways were being developed in the country and the population of cars and trucks was booming.

With the building of new highways, speed on the roads had increased considerably. Apart from this, more vehicle manufacturers were setting up their plants in the country and various institutions were searching for measures to improve road safety, she said.

Vehicle test standards, types of accident data, methods of collecting them, crash scene data collection, different types of safety features, types of injuries, vehicle compatibility issues and difficulties in implementing laws pertaining to road safety, are some of the topics to be covered in the seminar.

Seat belts

Ms. Padmanaban said that about a decade ago when wearing the seat belt was mandatory in the U.S., the suggestion received a poor response.

Only 12 per cent of the total population strictly followed the rule. But, thanks to a systematic campaign by various agencies and with the support of automobile manufacturers, the people realised the need for wearing seat belts and today 85 per cent of the U.S. population did so, she pointed out.

Four-wheelers

Asked why the organisation had decided to conduct a seminar on four-wheelers, Ms. Padmanaban said that a majority of automobile giants in the U.S. and other parts of the world were eyeing India and China to set up plants.

This was why it was proposed to conduct the seminar on four-wheelers, she said. Representatives from various Indian automobile industries are expected to participate in the seminar, she added.

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