By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 16 May: The 6th UN Global Road Safety Week (13-17 May) was observed by Sanjay Orthopaedic, Spine & Maternity Centre, SHEWA Society at Gurukul Kangri University, Haridwar. The lecture was attended by Vice Chancellor Dr Roop Kishor Shastri, Dr Sunil Kumar, Registrar, Prof Devendra Singh Malik, Dr Nitin Kamboj, Dr Vinod Kumar, Dr Nitin Bhardwaj and other staff, in addition to 300 students of various streams. The theme of this year’s road safety week is “streets for life, # Love 30”. The speed should be limited to 30 km per hour in urban areas – the higher the speed, steeper the risk, greater the fatalities.
During his lecture Padma Shri recipient orthopaedic surgeon Dr BKS Sanjay said that road traffic accidents have become an epidemic which is worse than that of Covid 19. Aggressive behaviour by drivers is a common scenario on the roads. Drivers feel proud to break the traffic rules.
He revealed that accidents which occur at night are usually fatal.
Dr Gaurav Sanjay added that nearly 5 lakh accidents occur in India every year. Out of them, one fourth to one third persons involved are killed, while one fourth are disabled for rest of their lives in spite of the best available treatment. The victims become poorer after these accidents, and the nation loses almost 3 to 5 percent of GDP due to accidents according to the Union Road Transport and Highways Minister, Nitin Gadkari.
Dr Gaurav said that, while it is impossible to identify viruses with the naked eye, but it is possible to identify, catch and penalise dangerous drivers. Studies show that 90 percent of accidents occur due to the negligence of drivers. After the awareness lecture, the students and faculty took the pledge to follow the traffic rules.
In this series, road safety awareness lectures have been fixed in other institutions such as Vedic Tapovan Ashram, Dehradun, Tula’s Institute Dehradun All India Radio, Dehradun, etc.
