21 thousand students benefit from Traffic Awareness initiative

Four government entities in Dubai have joined hands to deliver a traffic awareness event to more than 21 thousand students in various Dubai schools over the past 3 years under an initiative launched in 2010 themed: Child Safety - a Shared Responsibility. The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) which is the leader of the initiative in conjunction with the Dubai Police, Dubai Health Authority and Emirates Transport, managed to coordinate government efforts with a view to disseminating traffic awareness among children and mothers, and addressing traffic safety requirements in school zones. "The objectives of the initiative echo the general objectives of the Dubai Government in the field of traffic awareness and safety, serve the specific objectives of the Traffic Safety Committee at the Dubai Government level, and match the overall objectives of the participating government entities. Modern trends of awareness activities rely on the concerted efforts of multiple entities so as to serve at the end of the day the common objectives of every locality or Emirate in terms of security and safety," said Maitha bin Udai, CEO of RTA Traffic '&' Roads Agency. She stressed that results achieved over the past few years added to the success of the initiative and prompted the champions of the initiative to put more efforts towards broadening the scope of the initiative over the forthcoming years and benefiting from the modern business modules focused on the concerted and collective efforts, adding that plans were underway to widen the scale of the initiative to reach out to all schools and hospitals in Dubai. The gist of the initiative, which is supported by the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Social Affairs, Ministry of Education, Knowledge and Human Development Authority, and the Dubai Educational Zone, is built on a host of events and traffic awareness schemes undertaken by Dubai Government entities through a joint government team in a bid to propagate traffic awareness concepts among road users. Over the past three years, the initiative succeeded in publishing more than 70 awareness leaflets of which more than 700 thousand copies have been printed; including Salama magazine, of which ten thousand copies are published every month. The initiative contributed to serving the needs of the traffic awareness in school zones through designing and constructing 160 pedestrian crossings and more than 450 directional signs. Following the introduction of laws and regulations by the RTA to streamline the school transport sector, more than 6700 school bus drivers and more than 5000 bus conductors have been trained and licensed. The initiative specifically targets students and mothers who have recently given birth to children at Dubai public or private hospitals through a series of lectures, events and training workshops which succeeded over three years to reach out to more than 21,000 students in 127 schools. A wide variety of advertising materials has also been uploaded in social networking sites, websites and outdoor signage.