City-based Ganga Hospital has joined hands with the Coimbatore City Police, Coimbatore Chapter of Young Indians (Yi), and the Round Table, to launch the ‘Let the change begin in school’ campaign – to create awareness about road safety among school children.

According to statistics, every three minutes, one person dies in a road traffic accident in India. For the last 10 years, Tamil Nadu has been among the top three states in the country when it comes to fatal accidents. “Only awareness among road users to follow discipline on our roads can bring down the number of people losing their lives in road accidents, opined Dr. S. Rajasekaran, Chairman, Department of Orthopaedics, Trauma and Spine Surgery, Ganga Hospital, Coimbatore.

Addressing the media today, Dr. Rajasekaran said, “Every day, on my way to the hospital, I find several parents dropping their kids to school on their two wheelers. A majority of them break traffic rules. Children learn from observation. This has a bad impact on the children too. Through this project we will educate the children so that they in turn will educate their parents on road safety and road discipline at home.” He added that through this project, every child will become a policeman at home.

The doctor is confident that the project will bring down the number of road accidents in Coimbatore. As proof, he recollected that last year school children were educated about the harmful effects loud crackers have on birds and animals. “If you can recall, Coimbatore celebrated a quite Diwali last year. This is because several NGOs and organizations visited the schools in our city and educated the children on the impact bursting crackers has on the butterflies, squirrels and mynas. This prompted several school children to voluntarily give up bursting crackers,” he said.

Dr. Rajasekaran revealed that volunteers have already started visiting schools as part of the road awareness project. As part of the campaign, an audio-visual presentation with the message on road safety will be screened at all the schools.