To create awareness, Howrah cops show accident videos to drivers

Kolkata: In a unique move, the Howrah City Police have decided to create awareness among drivers of commercial vehicles by showing them video footages of accidents that took place in the recent times.

The move has come as a part of the "Safe Drive Save Life" campaign that was launched by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to check number of road accidents.

The Howrah City Police have taken up several steps to create awareness among people and drivers to check reckless driving that leads to most accidents including fatal ones. The programme to create awareness among drivers of commercial vehicles is a crucial part of the entire campaign taken up by the police.

It may be mentioned that a few months ago, video footages of accidents that were captured in surveillance cameras installed at different places of the city had gone viral in social networking sites.

In some of the video footages in which speeding vehicles were found mowing down pedestrians after flouting traffic norms had a spine chilling impact on the viewers. According to senior police officers, a driver would never even attempt to flout traffic norms after watching the video footages.

Recently, the Howrah City Police organised an awareness campaign at Sarat Sadan in which 200 drivers of commercial vehicles including buses, taxis, auto-rickshaws and e-rickshaws had taken part. Similar programmes will be organised in which more drivers will be involved in phases.

In the programme, the police officers have shown the drivers some presentations and the most crucial part of it was the screening of the video footages captured in different CCTV cameras of accidents that took place in the recent times.

According to an officer, the drivers were shocked after seeing the video footages as they realised that it could happen to them as well if they drive their vehicles recklessly or flout traffic norms. During an interactive session, some of the drivers told the police officers that screening of the video footages was enough as their eye opener.

During the awareness campaign, the police officers have pointed out in the video footages the faults of drivers that often leads to fatal accidents and at the same time, the drivers were told of the ways to avoid the same.

According to a police officer, creating awareness among common people that also include drivers is important to check road accidents besides developing necessary infrastructure.

It may be mentioned that the total number of accidents all across the state has reduced after the Chief Minister had initiated the state-wide "Safe Drive Save Life" campaign a couple of months back. The state Transport department has also extended financial assistance to the police in order to improve necessary infrastructure to check road accidents.