Awareness of Road Safety

Road safety helps in reducing the number of road deaths and injuries. A lifelong approach to road safety and responsibilities of the users changes lots of accidents and range of situation. 

Here are some important Road safety rules:

RULES TO ENHANCE ROAD SAFETY FOR CHILDREN:

Always Do’s:

• Always cross the road at designated pedestrian crossings, overhead bridges, underpasses or zebra crossings.
• Always be alert for inattentive drivers even at signalized crossings.
• Always use footpaths when possible.
• Always hold on to handrails on the bus to avoid being thrown off balance during sudden swerves or brakes.
• Always wait for the bus to stop fully before boarding or alighting.
• Always be alert for any oncoming cyclists or pedestrians when alighting from the bus.

Never Do’s:

• Never sprint across roads.
• Never cross in front of a stationary vehicle or between stationary vehicles.
• Never cross when the “red man” lights up or when the “green man” is flashing.
• Never play nor stand in the bus bay.
• Never stick out any part of your body when you’re in a bus or in a car.
• Never play in a moving vehicle.

TIPS FOR PARENTS:

• Be patient when driving your child to school, these are peak traffic hours.
• Always park your vehicle at designated parking areas.
• Be alert and anticipate any crossings by school children.
• Teach your children about road safety rules. Set a good example.
• Help your child to cross the road safely.

ROAD SAFETY TIPS FOR THE ELDERLY

Accidents involving the elderly frequently happen because of their diminished sensory and motor skills. But this doesn’t mean that senior citizens cannot enjoy the use of our roads. Help the elderly to enhance their safety by getting them to follow these road safety tips:

• RAISING YOUR HAND WHILE CROSSING a road is a good way to alert motorists.
• BE ALERT FOR INATTENTIVE DRIVERS, even when you are walking across allotted pedestrian crossing areas.
• Always remember to WALK ON FOOTPATHS AND WALKWAYS.
• USE PEDESTRIAN CROSSINGS like overhead bridges, underpasses, zebra crossings, and signalized traffic lights.
• BE SEEN, BE SAFE. Wear light coloured clothing or carry some reflective material when you’re walking at night.
• GET ASSISTANCE from someone if you’re going out. Don’t stand too far out when waiting for a bus or taxi.
• NEVER CROSS AT ROAD BENDS, where you cannot see oncoming vehicles and where they cannot see you. Cross from an area where you have a full view of both sides of the road.
• DON’T CROSS BETWEEN STATIONARY VEHICLES as these could move forward and run you over.

Source: “Handbook for Road Users” by Traffic Police Department, Singapore

The images below are part of a poster exhibit campaign by the Traffic Police of Hyderabad. But the message is relevant to all India cities, for sure !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the record, the Road Driving Sense Index of Hyderabad was found to

be the lowest in India - and even far lower than underdeveloped countries. 

Wake Up! India...

Follow the Rules of the Road -Shift from Barbarian to a Civilised way of Life.

Indian General Elections 2014 with social mobile apps

Since the current 15th Lok Sabha will complete its constitutional term on 31 May 2014,the next  election for the 16th Lok Sabha in India. Voting will take place in May 2014 in all 543 parliamentary constituencies of India to elect members of parliament in the Lok Sabha.In view of larger electorate and security concerns the election will be held in multiple phases.
The following major parties will contest in Lok Sabha elections.

a)The Indian National Congress which leads the UPA coalition  is the incumbent government.

After  Dr.Manmohan Singh has led the UPA coalition to two successive terms, the party is likely to endorse Rahul Gandhi as the prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 elections.

b)After two terms of not leading the government, the Bharatiya Janata Party will fight hard to return to power. 

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has been declared as the Prime Ministerial candidate by the BJP for the 2014 General Election. 

The success of the party in the Legislative Assembly elections in November 2013 has raised the hopes of the BJP party.

Developments after last General election:

After the last General elections the following major  developments have taken place which will play a major role in changing the mindset of the people and in turn will decide the fate of the next Government:

1) Many scams amounting to  several lakh crores of rupees involving many ministers,politicians were exposed revealing the corruption taking place to a huge extent. Many cases have been filed against ministers,member of parliament, politicians.

2) The anti corruption movement was started by Anna Hazare in 2011 with his followers.

The  repeated fasts undertook by him against corruption and for the implementation of a strong Lokpal Bill has created awareness among people for the necessity of having a  government without corruption.

3) Due to the differences between the activists  Anna Hazare and his main follower  Arvind Kejriwal on some issues, Arvind Kejriwal launched a new party named as Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on 26.12.2012.

Since its formation , AAP led several protests which has made the party and its leader Arvind Kejriwal very popular within a short period.

In the recently election held in Delhi , AAP emerged as the second-largest party, winning 28 of the 70 seats. With no party obtaining an overall majority, the AAP formed a  government headed by Arvind Kejriwal with conditional support from the Indian National Congress.

With the above scenario, the voters have to play a major role  in selecting a good and efficient government in the General Elections 2014. 

The voters were so far influenced by the publicity given  and the canvassing of votes through various media like  News Papers, Television etc in deciding the election of MLAs, MPS for the formation of Governments in the States and the Centre. 

In the General Elections 2014, apart from TVs and News papers the various social mobile applications will play a major role. 

I give below the various modes for influencing the voters and canvassing votes by me:

a) Sending group mails to all the friends and relatives highlighting the credentials of my preferred candidate. A good example for this kind of canvassing, is the effectiveness of group mails sent by Change.org for signing  petitions against various social crimes.

b)Sending messages through Twitter from my mobile  is another effective mode of canvassing the voters.

Many political leaders like Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,Narendra Modi,Sashi Tahrur  etc are using Twitter very effectively.

c)Sending messages through mobile applications like  wechat, Whatsapp, Viber,eBuddychat, etc.

The benefit of using these mobile  applications are:

a) All these smartphone messenger applications are available for Android and other smartphones. using our 3G or WiFi (when available) to send messages relating to the election with our friends and family members.

 

b) The conventional method of sending messages by way of  SMS will cost us the charges by the service providers. But there is no charges for using these mobile applications to send and receive messages, pictures, audio notes, and video messages about the candidates contesting the elections.. 

c) We can enjoy group conversations with your contacts discussing the pros and cons of various candidates.

d) We can send a million messages free of cost a day to our friends and relatives staying abroad all over the world as long as they have these  messengers installed and avoid those costly  international SMS costs. 

e) Our Address Book is used to automatically connect us with our contacts. Our contacts who already have these  Messengers will be automatically displayed.

f) These mobile applications  work with our phone number, just like SMS would, and integrates flawlessly with our existing phone address book.There is no need of user id, passwords etc

So the voters, especially the younger generation, who are going to vote in  the forthcoming General Elections in 2014 will be highly influenced by various social network applications like Face book, Orkut and various mobile applications like Whatsapp,wechat,viber etc.since the messages will spread very fast through these media rather than the conventional media like Television and Newspapers.

The above post has been written  by me for 'Indiblogger' contest for  "Indian General Elections 2014 with social mobile apps"