Transport department has begun a good, practical, new (?) initiative to educate young minds on road safety. While the initiative is commendable, the pity is that the kids (when they start using the roads) will start searching for signs but won't find too many! If signages are sparse or inadequate and initiatives like B-TRAC are improperly implemented, why spend money on sign education? It is probably better to get a basic minimum number of signs and then start the education.
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Waste of time without the other E
Thanks N for posting this.
I for one am tired of these educational gimmicks. Whats the point in kids learning one thing at a special sponsored session at school, and then driving along with their parents or relatives who would jump reds, overtake from left, drive 10 meters on the wrong side of the road to save 100 meters worth of fuel, and then crib about police taking bribes in those parties and gatherings.
The other E, called Enforcement has completely been forgotten. The traffic police is busy spending money - the game is automation, which we all love and encourage, and yes there are improvements. But I don't see any serious attempt being made to control the animals amongst us that are on the loose on our roads. Good work done on Devanahalli Bellary Road (NH7) is there for all of us as an example (drivers were scared to drive over 80 on this stretch), they had even created this fear on Outer ring Road stretch (cabbies kept themselves to 70 kmph, about 3 months ago). But these things seemed more like sporadic bursts.
Even for the Education E, let Mr Bhaskar Rao try and get a drivers license himself once in chhadma vesh.
When our traffic police commissioner has been pleading helplessness on almost all the forums that I have heard him talk, where is the hope? Since we want to be constructive here - let us just focus on the only good thing that our traffic police wants to do - that is called automation (aka spend money without focus on ROI).
Educate Those in Rural Areas Too
The reality is that most of the cab /paid drivers probably are school drop outs or never went to school & came to the city in search of employment.
Unless efforts are made to reach them in these sort of initiatives, the educated ones will keep getting frustrated with the actual ground position & they too will break rules & "join the party", so to speak !
Further, as SB mentioned, the monitoring apparatus is poor & unless there is some element of fear instilled (such as on new airport road or ORR), flouting rules will be all too common.
Vicious circle
The enforcement is poor due to lack of funds. Even if traffic police exist, they are overworked and underpaid and so the propensity toward bribes is high. People always want to be the first at the expense of others. In my opinion, it should start with the long overdue police and RTO reforms - independent policing with the majority amount of the fines collected going back to hiring adequate people. And, the fine amounts need to automatically increase in tune with inflation and not get governed by the Centre (Motor Vehicles Act). Long time ago an enterprising citizen got a drivers license for his 2 month old baby based on her photo (and help of touts) and promptly wrote a letter in the newspaper - ergo RTO reforms are needed. Also, .... hopelessly getting off-topic.
BTW, a LOT of educated two-wheeler drivers are the impatient ones who get on to the footpaths, drive on the wrong side etc. (and flaunt connections, if caught) to save some time. In fact, the contra-argument against the uneducated, migrant drivers is that they may be too "scared" to violate rules but may just follow the (fearless? lawless?) seasoned drivers. Of course, once the newbies get the experience, they become the path-bearers...