Diageo India extends its Road Safety Programme to the Traffic Police of Uttar Pradesh together with the Institute of Road Traffic Education

15 Nov 2018 | Press release

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Initiative will help build capacity by training over 70 Kanpur Police officers

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Kanpur, November 15, 2018: Diageo India, today announced the launch of the Road Safety capacity building program for the Uttar Pradesh Police together with the Institute of Road Traffic Education (IRTE). The programme was inaugurated in the august presence of SP Traffic Mr. Sushil Kumar, SP south Kanpur Ms. Raveena Tyagi, IPS, Mr. Avinash Pandey, IPS Dr. Sewa Ram, School of Planning and architecture and Dr. Rohit Baluja, President, Institute of Road Traffic Education (IRTE).

As per industry reports, India accounts for 12.5% (over 1,45,000 fatalities a year) of global road accidents, with 1 road accident occurring every four minutes. Alarmingly, 72% victims involved in such road mishaps are between the age groups of 15-44 years with speeding, reckless driving and driving under the influence of alcohol being the top reasons accounting for 1.5% of road traffic accidents and 4.6% of fatalities. In 2017, the state reported over 20,100 deaths resulting from road accidents and Kanpur reported over 1500 road accidents and over 680 fatalities according to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.

Aimed at achieving higher levels of efficiency and effectiveness, the two-day programme on November 15-16, 2018 in Kanpur, will provide capacity building training to traffic police and transport officers in road accident investigation and traffic management.

Commenting on the initiative, Abanti Sankaranarayanan, Chief Strategy and Corporate Affairs Officer, Diageo India, said “The Diageo India ‘Road to Safety’ initiative aims to create the necessary impact to address the abysmal state of road safety in our country. By collaborating with the Uttar Pradesh Police and IRTE, we aim to take this programme to greater heights and create a national movement around road safety.”

Dr. Rohit Baluja, President, Institute of Road Traffic Education (IRTE), said “Within the country, Uttar Pradesh accounts for the highest number of road traffic injuries and fatalities. Though mitigation of this calamity is a shared responsibility of all authorities, traffic police by default is held responsible. Training of traffic police in all domains of traffic engineering, enforcement as well as road crash investigation is most important. Modules for training of Kanpur Police have been specially developed based upon careful study made in the district, and most importantly the road authorities are also being invited to understand the areas where corrective action needs to be taken. I sincerely appreciate the importance given by the Kanpur authorities especially the police for this training which has been supported by Diageo India under their Road to Safety initiative.”

In its fourth year, Diageo India and IRTE have been successfully running their ‘Road to Safety’ initiative to provide capacity building training to traffic police officials and educating commercial drivers such as truckers and bus drivers and university students on the dangers of drinking and driving. Till date, the programme has covered 18 states spread 64 cities training over 5700 police officials, educating 6,000 commercial vehicle drivers and over 5,500 university students.

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