Will Mumbai commit to safety?

The latest release this Friday in theatres across the city will be the Mumbai Traffic Police’s slides on drunken driving awareness, crafted especially with the New Year’s celebration in mind. The innovative initiative is a part of the department’s ‘“safe celebration week” launched recently between December 24 and 31.

“We launched the slides on 17 screens of different theatres mostly around the suburbs on Thursday and this shall be extended to over 50 theatres across the city on Friday. The slides mostly comprise messages cautioning people against over speeding, rash driving etc,” said joint commissioner of police (traffic) Vivek Phansalkar.

The traffic police has tied up with maximum multiplexes in the city as well as suburb to run the awareness slides before the movie begins not just on 31 but to continue showing it for the next ten days considering that the road safety week begins with the dawn of the New Year. “We want every Mumbaikar to resolve abiding to road safety norms in the coming year and all our messages on the slides reflect our intention,” said deputy commissioner of police(South) Nand Kumar Chaugule.

The messages on the slides urge viewers to make a commitment of not violating any traffic norms. “ New Year commitment- don’t drink and drive”, “New Year commitment-don’t over-speed”, “New Year commitment- don’t use mobile phone’s while driving”, are few of the messages displayed on the slides for the cinema audience.

“From the beginning of the year 2009 till date we have had 15,071 cases of drunken driving out of which 9,039 were sentenced to simple imprisonment while 7,950 licenses were suspended. This is much better as against the figures of 2009 when there were 11,499 cases of simple imprisonment and 9,424 license suspensions. Our aim is to try and lower this figure”, concluded Phansalkar.