Awareness drive showing results: Traffic dept

The traffic police on Monday said their efforts to spread awareness among people about safe driving have started yielding results. The traffic police had put up 800 signboards giving information about safety rules such as not crossing stop lines at signals at 200 chowks in the city last month. They now claim the number of traffic rule violations in the city have shown a decline.

The traffic police say they had taken action against 36,880 people for jumping the stop lines in the first five months of last year and the number of such cases came down to a mere 10,285 in the corresponding period this year. The traffic police officers claim this has happened because of their two-pronged strategy of continuing attempts to sensitise motorists about safety driving and taking stringent action against those flouting the rules.

Inspector (administration) Ramchandra Dhage from traffic branch of Pune police said, “We want to educate the masses and spread awareness about safe driving. We are trying to sensitise motorists to follow traffic rules and not indulge in violations such as halting on zebra crossings at traffic signals. Our emphasis is on spreading awareness that crossing the stop line or jumping traffic signal results in accidents.”

He said, “We have now started holding special meetings in different part of the city to educate people about the traffic rules.”