Can you pass the no-phone-while driving challenge?
How important can this phone call have been? Image courtesy: www.allindiaroundup.com, 20th July, 2016
Benedicta Isaac-Kumar
Seat belts – there for a reason
For too long now, we have been treating the seat belt as if it were a vestigial organ. Confused? A vestigial organ is a rudimentary body part that is not really functional. So high is our disregard for this life saving device, that when our cars have their yearly check over, obliging mechanics neatly tuck away and put under seat covers, this appendage that we’d rather not be dealing with. In most Indian minds, the seat belt is a mere trimming, an optional decoration that is mostly irrelevant.
Was that drink worth it?
Image courtesy: European Transport Safety Council
So, you like your beer. Maybe you even like getting drunk. Maybe you think, it’s the one weakness you have; or that you get to be young once – why not be a bit reckless too? Never mind what your idea of reckless is – getting drunk and getting behind the wheel of a car must not be one of them. Here’s why:
Road safety - the basics
The years 2011-2020 have been designated as the Decade of Action for Road Safety by the WHO. This is global acknowledgment of the gravity of road safety issues across the world and the lives being lost to it. Internationally, road accidents kill as many people as the major pandemics, malaria and TB (Source: National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies).
Ambulance etiquette
In a crowded country like India, where our senses are constantly assaulted by noises, colours and sights, its streets filled with jostling crowds and impatient vehicles competing for space and struggling to get past, it is no surprise that we have learnt to ignore anything extraneous to our own thoughts, needs and plans for the day.
In a pragmatic society like ours, we accept with little argument that death is inevitable. We all have to die and die of something. We see death and decay all too frequently, maybe chronically numbing our senses, destroying our empathy.
International practices in road safety and potential lessons for India
The years 2011-2020 have been designated as the Decade of Action for Road Safety by the World Health Organisation (WHO). This is a global acknowledgement of the gravity of road safety issues across the world and the lives being lost to it. Internationally, road accidents kill as many people as the major pandemics, malaria and TB[1] .
Only an hour to save this life
If you’ve spent any time on Indian roads, chances are you’ve seen an accident. Why, there is one every 4 minutes. So many that they are hard to escape – and I’m not saying that as a prophet of doom.