RR Patil to give tips on safe driving

First-time car drivers, who will be issued learning licences on Monday, will get safety tips from home minister RR Patil as part of the annual road safety fortnight.

“There is a need to catch youngsters and impart positive driving lessons to them. The transport department, traffic police and all the stakeholders will be coming on one platform to counter this problem,” a senior RTO official said.

The latest examples of youngsters’ negligence of safe driving are incidents over the weekend. Of the 860 drunken driving cases on the midnight of December 31-January 1, maximum number of cases — nearly 250 — involved youngsters between ages of 21 and 25 and another 200 between the age group of 25 to 30 years.

The traffic police and transport department have launched a series of measures for the fortnight, including fining overloaded vehicles and launching a special drive against all traffic offences. While the traffic department has prepared 17 slides on awareness, the transport department has planned a series of seminars and lectures on safe driving in schools and colleges.

Human chain for safety
More than 3,000 children will form a human chain from Marine Drive to Mantralaya to create awareness on road safety. “A similar chain will be formed in the suburbs at Ghatkopar,” Deepak Kapadia of the Western India Automobile Association said.