Reckless driving: Kolkata Police to bring offending drivers under traffic training programme

This comes after the death of officer of the Indian Air Force Corporal Abhimanyu Gaud. The city traffic police provide training to a section of drivers who met with accidents due to their own faults of violating traffic norms. 

According to senior police officers, who had worked for quite a few years in the city police’s traffic department, such training courses leave a deep impact on a driver and they start driving cautiously by following all norms. 

At the same time the drivers share their knowledge with their colleagues and this again help to bring down the chances of accidents. 

 “It was noticed in most cases of road accidents which took place in the wee hours or early in the morning that either the driver was in an inebriated state or they fell asleep while driving as they were tired after driving for longs hours. The accident on red Road that claimed the life of Gaud is a case of similar kind in which it is suspected that the youth who was driving was in an inebriated state,” said a police officer. 

The training to drivers with record of flouting traffic norms that led to accidents was provided at the Traffic Training School of the Kolkata Traffic Police. The training is provided in batches. 

The city traffic police have been providing training to such drivers for the past few years. “But now a discussion has already taken place to incorporate more such drivers into the training programme,” the officer said. 

The training programme is mainly focused on the safety measures and necessary precautions to be taken while driving. Special one-day workshops for bus, auto-rickshaw, taxi and lorry drivers are also being conducted almost on every month of a year. 

In a bid to make common people go through a small part of the entire course of the training, one-day workshops are also being held for members of different societies and clubs.   

Besides providing training on traffic related aspects, there are trainers in the Traffic Training School to take lessons on stress and behavior management. More emphasis will be given from now on training of stress and behavior management of the “offending drivers”.

Concerned senior officers of the traffic department go through the details of the drivers, whose driving licences have been impounded for violating traffic norms that led to accidents, and asks them to undergo the training. 

On an average 200 offending drivers get trained in Traffic Training School every year. 

“If everything goes as planned then the number may get doubled this time,” the police officer said.