Absense of Road sense Deadlier than Corona

Road Safety, Asif J. Khawaja, SMILE, smile school of training, smile.org.pk, absence of road sense, corona 19, road users, road accidents, rescue 1122

Year Twenty 20 disrupted everyday life in an unprecedented way and its peak; total losses effects on society are neither known nor predictable. Keeping our fingers crossed, praying for mercy from God almighty we all are hoping for an early end with minimum losses. Corona19 as talk of the town or country is expected to continue for few more months with recovery phase almost continuing to the end of current year. Next year starting from new budget will be very different and perhaps difficult too. Time is right to prepare ourselves as nation for expected new community living style.

Before doing that let me remind the readers and members of our think tank about two (2) more deadly viruses. As a nation we lack “National Discipline” mainly because no effort towards nation building has ever been launched. This missing link created many problems and was visible in our every day works from not following orders to creating unnecessary rush at places. Corona had very low death with almost zero disability rates but the second virus namely “Absence of Road Sense” is annually causing around 15,000 deaths and 40,000 disabilities since past many years. YES you are right it counts to over forty deaths every day. Even during the so called lockdown around twenty deaths and eighty plus disabilities continued.

Anticipating that existing crisis will continue till end of this year, many commercial orders will be revised and new freight rules will be coming up. Based on these our industries and organisations will be drafting their new visions for next year’s which might include revised lower salaries and wages. Let’s join hands and prepare our communities and generation next to live, work and earn under new post corona era. For the communities we must generate caring environment, efficient medical response, training on emergencies and blood donation services. This will be our first step towards nation building which will have to improve, develop further and continue in future years. Communities must organize themselves (country-wide) in responding to emergencies and having trained youth force with practiced SOPs for ensuring lockdown and managing requirement of food, ration, first aid, fire prevention and caring for each other.

Road Sense is much bigger subject but can easily be defined as sets of activities for different categories of road users as the direct responsibility of all and every stakeholder. For Road Sense will only taking up two points to begin, traffic discipline at school gates and improvement in the licensing system. It may be starting from schools by ensuring that every school has zebra crossing, designated and marked waiting area for cars, its own bus service and trained volunteers or student force for ensuring no parking violation in their area of responsibility.

Drivers on pickup duty will have to be trained on the Japanese “J I T” working methodology. Every training institute will have system of volunteers trained for the job of traffic management and referring the violators to concerned authorities. For Nation Building, Awareness on first aid and basics of fire prevention will have to incorporate in the school activity for staff, academia and students. Social distancing and all time use of PPE will have to be adopted as new working ethics. Plantation and subsequent care of trees and environment activities at nearby tourism sites be included in annual plan. This will also be creating love for homeland.

• Taking the licensing as proper issuance of the same with across the board penalties will be the single most important factor for change. Have taken licensing for these reasons:
• As per available details and their comparison with number of registered vehicle, number of licenses is only one third. Or say every fourth driver has a proper license.
• Almost similar rules are being executed under different SOPs in different parts
• Very little skill development training is organized for staff employed for licensing duties.
• Details of offences committed by every driver were neither being recorded nor readily available; for applying “Repeat Clause” nor point system towards cancellation of license.
• Dozens of driving schools are operating in every area of every city with almost none of them complying MVR 23 of 69.
• All publications including the recently issued guidelines by GOP have been consulted.
• The existing penalties have been enhanced many times but the desired effect has not been achieved because in most of the commercial drivers these fines are either paid by the owner or the manager of midway stop hotel or transferred to user by increasing fare.
• The proposed new system of online e-challan and associated penalty of imprisonment will have to be developed with staff trained on speedy execution.

Few important stakeholders may be listed as:

• TEVTA (Technical Education & Vocational Training Authority) in Punjab few years back included driving training in their technical courses, acquired land for proper school and at present is facilitating learning driving through modified process of getting training through police.
• LCCI since past few years is continuously putting in efforts towards “Safer Roads” and now is preparing for CPEC requirements of HTV & LTV drivers. The requirement beginning 500 per annum and increasing to 1000 in next 3 to 4 years is anticipated.
• PES (Punjab Emergency Service – Rescue1122) is handling approx 1000 Road Traffic Crashes daily and through driving section is continuing efforts to improve driving on existing unsafe roads. For this project they shall provide class rooms and driving tracks till launching of the proper school and facilitate in provision of training on First Aid & Fire Awareness to all participants.
• All existing driving schools to complete registration process as per MVR 23 of 69 and agreeing to the process with revised terms, time line for registration of schools (at LCCI, TEVTA, PES or CTP) with an addition of “having minimum of one each of male and/or female “Qualified Driving Instructor” per school.
• The day to day management of “School of Motoring” shall be administered through full time dedicated staff and reps nominated by above and other stakeholders. Their designations, qualifications, pay & perks and allied facilities will be finalized in stakeholders meeting. Details of courses, their contents, duration, number of students and proposed fee structure will be prepared once the management team is in place.

The suggested way forward is:

• Selection of trainers through Training of Trainers to be initiated soonest.
• Establishing a School of Motoring its terms for administrative control and agreeing on setting up timeline for registration and start of courses.
• Starting training of Driving Instructors (facilitators) as a step towards “Safer Road Users”. First few courses for this category can easily be arranged through available trainers in the country.
• This proper “School” complying with all clauses of the rules under reference is then to initiate training of instructors for both their own staff and public in general. Defining scope, nomenclature of courses to be conducted with their time details and fee structure. Forming a (combined) team for affiliation with some international organization and initiating process of forming and registration of an “Automobile Association or Driving Instructors Association”. Also for approval of status and activation of Chapter II Rule 6 Clause (a) in MVR 1965 for authority to issue license
• For Punjab 24/7 facility with number of outlets catering for 500,000 licenses every month with a target of ONE MILLION Licenses every month as six months target. Similar demand based organization setup in other provinces – soon.
• Working details after reopening of offices will be published after approval of stakeholders.
• With Two major milestones for Pakistan of SECP to be completed by 2035 and 100th birthday of Pakistan in 2047 in mind this and similar more steps will be proposed by our think tank in due course of time.

-Published on pages#44-45, June-2020 Edition of MOBILE WORLD Magazine