Public assistance vital to curb accidents - DIG

Ridma DISSANAYAKE

"Protecting law and peace is the responsibility and duty of the Police. But they cannot do that without the assistance of the public," said Western Province Senior DIG Ashoka Wijethilaka.

"Now all allegations on road accidents are made against Police and drivers. But most of them are happening because of pedestrians' carelessness. Because of that making an attitudinal change is very important and it should begin from school level," he said.

"Over 100 road accidents occur in Sri Lanka daily and 45 out of them are fatal ones. In 2010 over 2,480 fatal road accidents had been reported to the Sri Lanka Police and over 2,600 persons had died due to these accidents, said Traffic Administration Road Safety Director Senior Superintendent of Police K. Arasaratnam.

"Most people killed by road accidents are pedestrians and they have died because of their carelessness. Road accidents damage public property and last year alone the value of property destroyed was over Rs. 15 billion, he said.

Senior Superintendent of Police K. Arasaratnam was addressing a special training programme for school children organized by the Traffic Police Headquarters on "Traffic management to reduce the number of road accidents" held yesterday at Royal Collage, Colombo.

Over 700 students from 28 schools in the Colombo district participated in this training programme and they are to be trained as School Traffic Wardens with the permission of principals and students' parents.

Nestle Lanka PLC, Richard Pieris and Company PLC (Arpico) and the Ceylinco Insurance Company sponsored this special training programme.