Development of Educational Content on Road Safety for CSR Initiatives
We have been fortunate to have received the opportunity to work with some of the niche clients of different industries in the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives.
Some of our key clientele includes Bharat Petroleum, Egyptian LNG – an Egyptian Oil Company, Suriname Oil, and SMEC India Pvt. Ltd., a company working on the Chennai Kolkata corridor of the National Highway Authority of India’s Golden Quadrilateral.
For these clients, we have played a pivotal role in curating meaningful educational content on road safety, majorly in the electronic format. The content has been well-received by the clients and has acted as a catalyst for change in ensuring better road usage behaviors and road safety.
Ensuring Pedestrian Safety
“Pedestrians comprise around one quarter of the annual global road deaths.”
It is an undeniable fact that the roads belong to the pedestrians as much as it belongs to the drivers. So, while marking the Second UN Global Road Safety Week we took an initiative in sync with the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration to draw attention to the issue of pedestrian safety.
We conducted the “Long Short Walk” awareness program in the North Indian states of Chandigarh, Punjab, and Haryana. The program promoted the healthy habit of walking while guaranteeing pedestrian safety.
By the end of the program, we were able to pave the way for some milestone changes by the Chandigarh Administration, such as:
- They decided to reduce the maximum speed limit by 5 Km/hr. on all city roads.
- They marked zebra crossing on the NH21 near the intersection from where the school students cross and depute Traffic Marshals in the mornings and afternoons.
- Installation of “Pedestrian Lights” on the roads around the City Center, Hospitals and Educational Institutions.
Joining Hands for the Safety of Non-Motorized Vehicles
Indian roads, including highways have a non-homogeneous traffic. While most of the awareness and enforcement campaigns on drunken driving target only drivers/riders of motorized vehicles, they often forget that there is a far bigger number of VRUs [Vulnerable Road Users] using NMVs [Non-motorized Vehicles] on the roads. These VRUs stop over at the roadside liquor vend and head back home, mostly in an inebriated state; hence putting themselves and other road users at risk.
As per law, enforcement agencies cannot stop and check the VRUs for drunken driving/riding so they can “move freely” on the road.
Mostly, these VRUs are daily wage-workers and the only breadwinners of the family. If they get injured or die in a road crash, the whole family gets into a deeper financial crisis besides the emotional trauma. This group of road users lives in thickly populated slums, villages or colonies in and around the city, and are often neglected when it comes to road safety.
So, our team at ArriveSAFE joined hands for ensuring the safety of non-motorized vehicles by conducting awareness campaigns on the consequences of drunken driving through posters, leaflets, banners, street plays and public meetings.
We involved different special interest groups like traffic police, leaders of community-based organizations, religious and political leaders of the area and management of private sector enterprises where they work.
Besides the awareness campaigns, we also invested in high quality reflectors on all NMVs as an incentive and to ensure that the NMVs are visible.
In this endeavor, we targeted two colonies/slums in the cities of Chandigarh & Jalandhar and reached out to more than 4,000 NMVs users and their families.
With the help of media, we also made it a point that these road users should be considered at par with drivers of motorized vehicles at least for the enforcement on drunken driving.
Capacity Building Workshops on Social Marketing
Police officials, Community Based Organizations (CBO) and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) play a key role in creating ripples of change in the society.
So, as a part of the Bloomberg Philanthropies funded RS-10 project undertaken in Jalandhar, Punjab, we, along with Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP) conducted various Drunken Driving Enforcement workshops, and Capacity Building workshops for Traffic Police officials, local NGOs and CBOs on Social Marketing.
These workshops were conducted with the view to support the “Enhanced Enforcement” program to counteract alcohol impaired driving and the resulting crashes, which occur on Indian roads.
The program drew information from the WHO Best Practice Manual “Drinking and Driving – a Road Safety Manual for Decision Makers and Practitioners”, combined with international and local experience as well as the practicality of enforcement in India. The workshops were based on the successful model used throughout South East Asia but, had been specifically modified to match local conditions and requirements after consultation with key police personnel and other local road safety experts.
International best practices combined with education and visible police enforcement helped to lay a strong foundation for influencing community attitudes, changing driver behaviors and ensuring safe road user discipline.