In a bid to curb road accidents caused by traffic rule violations, the Metropolitan Traffic Police has decided to train more than 100,000 students and public vehicle drivers on road safety under its campaign “Traffic Ujalo Abhiyan.”
The division will begin its drive from Tuesday, deploying 133 traffic police personnel across all 44 units of the Kathmandu Valley.
Earlier, in late October, the division had trained more than five dozen drivers of various ministries in Singha Durbar, as they were found flouting traffic rules more often.
The recently appointed traffic police chief, Senior Superintendent of Police Bhim Prasad Dhakal, identified three E themes: education, engineering, and enforcement as the way forward.
“We are implementing the education theme. It’s in its preliminary phase,” said Dhakal. “Many license-holding drivers do not even have a basic knowledge of traffic rules.”
For traffic-related education in schools and colleges, the division has already tied up with higher institutions, Secondary Schools Association Nepal, Private and Boarding Schools’ Organisation Nepal and National Private and Boarding Schools Association Nepal.
Each unit of the valley will be reaching out to every school and college and hold traffic-related classes in a batch of 50 students per session.
“This is a sustainable plan to curb future accidents and traffic rule violations,” said Dhakal. “If we can make students well aware of traffic rules at the school level, these students can pass their knowledge to their parents and friends as well.”
Dhakal said he was inspired by the compulsory road safety education in the National School Curriculum of Japan. “The Japanese government has made it mandatory for primary level students to learn about traffic rules and road safety. But in our case, almost all the licence holders are unfamiliar with the traffic rules and regulations,” said Dhakal.
In the three-month-long drive, each unit of the traffic police will undertake to teach students lane discipline, U-turns, traffic lights, proper overtaking and parking rules.
“At the same time, we will continue with our public awareness programme on road behaviour when the traffic flow is higher,” Dhakal added.
Anup Ojha is a reporter for The Kathmandu Post primarily covering social issues, crime, and human interest stories since 2011. Before moving to the social beat, Ojha covered arts and culture for the Post for four years.
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