The Kochi-based SCMS Institute for Road Safety and Transportation (SiRST) has achieved a landmark by imparting correctional training to a total of 20,000 drivers who were involved in accidents and grave rule violations and regular road users during the past year.
Most of them were sent to the institute by the Motor Vehicles Department, considering that it is the exclusive extension centre for Edappal-based Institute of Driver Training and Research (IDTR) that imparted similar correctional training to drivers. In addition, the district road safety authorities of Ernakulam and Thrissur recently roped in the institute as a ‘technical expert’, for studying and rolling out accident-mitigation measures, informed sources said.
The joint director of IDTR Saifudeen K.M. said his institute offered a dozen training courses for drivers. “As our exclusive extension centre, SiRST, whose faculty was trained by our personnel, has been doing a meticulous work in order to mitigate accidents. Aimed at further improving the efficacy of the training process, efforts are underway to offer three-day training (it is one day training now) to drivers involved in accidents and to those who were nabbed for reckless driving, among others. In this, serious offenders would also have to do palliative care, wherein they would get a chance to see first hand the agony of accident victims.”
Mr. Saifudeen spoke of how innumerable drivers, including those of school buses, are not aware of many basic road-safety concepts. There are even drivers who do not know what a vehicle’s ‘blind spots’ are and what warning lights in the dashboard signify. Efforts are underway to have more extension centres for IDTR, he added.
The SiRST is also a key player in global and regional road safety initiatives, being a member of Asia-Pacific Road Safety Observatory and the Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety, said G. Adarsh Kumar, director of the institute. It is also conducting road-safety audits and reviews of accident prone areas and junctions, and submitting reports before the district road safety authority concerned for follow up action.
Yet another initiative of the institution is Know Your Vehicle, a flagship programme that SiRST provides. The day-long programme that was attended by 1,357 people was formulated to educate the general public about how a vehicle functions, its capabilities and limitations. Professors in automobile engineering lead the sessions that cover the bumper to bumper of a vehicle. The participants also go through a hands on practical training where they change a tyre, fuses, and wiper blades, he added.
It also has a driver-counselling centre in which the offenders and accident victims are imparted psychological and legal counselling, as part of the crash-prevention course. They are then considered as road safety volunteers, following which regular follow up is done to monitor their (change of) attitude. Over 2,600 people have attended the sessions.