The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Students do their bit to police the roads

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Aug 14, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Students do their bit to police the roads

K. Ramachandran and Meera Srinivasan

30,000 enrolled in Road Safety Patrol

CHENNAI : When Class 12 student Hari once requested a motorist to wear a helmet, the motorist asked him to mind his own business. "Isn't road safety everyone's business?" Hari asks.

"I once stopped a motorist and asked him to adhere to the speed norm outside our school. The next time I saw him, he was driving much slower," said Parameswaran, also a Class 12 student.

Like Hari and Parameswaran, over 30,000 students from 300 city schools are part of the Road Safety Patrol. Despite rude remarks from a few commuters, they do their part to ensure road safety.

"Road safety education has to be spread through RSP cadets. Students not only spread the message in their peer groups, they also make sure their parents and relatives follow rules," B. Raghuveeran, headmaster of P.S. Higher Secondary School said.

As part of their training, students are taught ways to reduce and prevent accidents. They are trained to give first aid as well. "The RSP functions keeping in mind the road, road users, vehicles and cadets themselves," said Mr. Raghuveeran, who is also a traffic warden with the Tamil Nadu Police Traffic Wardens' Organisation.

The School Education Department has so far not made it compulsory for schools to have an RSP wing. However, under the state government's Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan scheme, teachers of classes one to eight were given handbooks on road safety. Besides basics such as traffic rules and causes for accidents, teachers were also required to tell students how they could participate.

"We plan to send letters to all the schools urging them to have an RSP wing exclusively or club it with their NCC and Scout activities," a senior official of the department said.

According to a study conducted by The Institute of Road Safety (Taramani) in 2003 and 2004, about 10 per cent of those who succumbed to fatal road accidents on two wheelers were below 20 years. Over 50 per cent were in the age group 21-40 years.

Statistics provided by the State Transport Authority reveal that there were over 8500 fatal road accidents in the state in 2005.This may be why activists feel sensitisation to Road Safety should begin right at school. Despite resources and adequate material, they feel lack of focussed activity has cost us so many lives. "All schools should definitely consider having an RSP force. I have seen so many people change their mind when a request comes from a child. These are people who might not have taken even the traffic cop seriously," said V. Viswanathan, traffic warden and teacher at Vidya Mandir, Mylapore.

Schools interested in setting up an RSP wing may contact Harish Mehta, Chief Traffic Warden, at the Office of the Joint Commissioner of Police (traffic) at Vepery.

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