CHENNAI: Taking the virtual route to spread awareness on road safety rules and stress the role of negligence leading to road accidents, Chennai City Police released a video that features noted singer Gaana Bala.
The four-minute video highlights the various traffic rule violations and unfortunate consequences that inevitably follow. “The video will be uploaded on social networking sites to increase awareness on road safety and traffic rules,” said City Police Commissioner AK Viswanathan on Tuesday.
He released the video, along with the singer and senior officials from city police, at the commissionerate. Pointing out the reality on the roads, Additional Commissioner (Traffic) Abay Kumar Singh said people were aware of most traffic rules, but seldom heed them.
Incidentally, Chennai (and Tamil Nadu) are top of the list of cities/states when it comes to road traffic accidents and fatalities. Highlighting one of the most common violations seen in the city, Singh noted there was a tendency not to follow traffic signals if traffic police personnel were not around. “Despite traffic signals functioning properly, there has to be a police personnel deployed,” he said, adding that parents should be more responsible and not allow minor children to ride motor bikes or cars.
“If more space is created for parking, most vehicles parked on the road can be avoided, which would ease traffic,” he said.
“Efforts are being taken by the city traffic police to ease congestion. All dysfunctional traffic signals will be soon rectified.”
If people ensured that they follow traffic rules and stopped blaming others for mistakes, most accidents can be avoided, noted Bala, who has written and sang the song in the video. Though he has stopped singing in films, he has continued singing for social causes.
During the press meet, Bala also sang about the dangers of manja strings — kite strings covered in ground glass — which have led to several accidents, including those leading to death.
The short film is directed by Niranjan.