Mercedes-Benz India (MBIL), Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (DICV), Mercedes-Benz Research and Development India (MBRDI) and Daimler Financial Services India (DFS) organized ‘Safe Roads India Summit 2017’, in New Delhi in the presence of Nitin Gadkari, Minister for Road Transport & Highways, Shipping and Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation, Government of India. Speaking on the occasion Gadkari said that the Government of India is committed to reducing road accident fatality by 50 percent by the year 2020.
In addition to improving highways the Government is also focussing on generating road safety awareness among people through campaigns like SAFE ROADS. The Minister commended Mercedes-Benz for taking up the SAFE ROADS campaign as their CSR initiative. He said that in order to achieve the target of 50% fatality reduction by 2020 the Government needs the support of programs like Mercedes-Benz SAFE ROADS.
Since last two years, Mercedes-Benz and its entities organized multiple road safety awareness road-shows in most major cities like Delhi, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Kochi, Hyderabad and Kolkata that touched more than 50,000 lives through physical demonstrations, visual aids and research reports. The Safe Roads Summit is conceptualized to take the road safety awareness to another level. The first Safe Roads Summit this year focuses on safety of children as they are the most vulnerable on the streets.
Every year, thousands of young children are killed or seriously injured in accidents in India. According to Ministry of Road Transport and Highway reports, around 27 children die on Indian roads every day. At the Summit, 300 school children and 200 college students from New Delhi attended the event. The college students were given a ‘First Responder Training’ by NGO partner Indian Head Injury Foundation. ‘Safe Roads’ is a road show that spreads the message of road safety through physical demonstration, visual aids and research reports.