Lighting candles for 133 persons who lost their lives in road accidents within the city limits this year, volunteers of Trauma Care Kozhikode (TRACK) observed World Day of Remembrance for road accident victims on Sunday. It also turned out to be an occasion to sensitise people to the need for better awareness of traffic rules.
Minister for Transport A.K. Saseendran inaugurated the programme during which 133 white-clad trauma care volunteers lined up with lighted candles. V.K. Mohandas, a Puthiyangadi native who lost his son in an accident recently, lit the first candle. Relatives of over 10 accident victims attended the function.
Addressing the gathering, Mr. Saseendran said the government would make all possible efforts to set up at-least one trauma care centre every 20 kilometres on national highways.
“Steps will be taken to appoint well-trained trauma care volunteers at such centres. Also, the State government will bear the expense of printing books on special road traffic awareness for distribution among students,” he added.
Office-bearers of TRACK said as many as 302 people had lost their lives in various road accidents in Kozhikode district this year till November 20, 2016. The programme was also aimed at sensitising people to unsafe driving and its impact on pedestrians and fellow motorists, they said.
Driving instructors
E.R. Sathya Krishnan, secretary of TRACK, said his trained team members would embark on a series of training programmes for driving school instructors from the district in the forthcoming months as unscientific driving instructions had been found to be a major reason for the rising road accident deaths. “We have already launched a training programme with the support of the Motor Vehicles Department for driving school instructors,” he added. As part of field-level interventions, school bus drivers will be covered in the second phase of training. Office-bearers of TRACK said they had so far trained around 44,500 persons in effective trauma care and another 500 exclusively in disaster management.
