Hella India Lighting Ltd. (HILL) organized a Road Safety Week from 11 – 17 January 2016, throughout the country to create awareness among automotive fraternity to improve vehicle safety on road and to give an opportunity to all industry stakeholders to contribute to the cause of road safety.
HELLA brings “Technology of Tomorrow for the Life of Today” to the Indian Roads. Member of the Management Board of the HELLA Group, Germany, along with all employees of HILL, has adopted the new strategy for the company to focus all future activities around the central theme of ensuring road safety on Indian Roads. In this regard, for the OE segment HELLA India Lighting Ltd. focuses on state of the art products manufactured at its Derabassi plant, near Chandigarh and safety awareness campaigns through its strong independent aftermarket network.
Electricians, Retailers and Drivers participated in a few Road Safety Games organized by the company. Members who signed the Safety pledge received “Road safety warrior” badges by field volunteers of Hella and would also be participating in the yearlong Safety drive. In places like Patna, the traffic police also voluntarily involved themselves in the road show. “Signature Wall campaign” also was run during the safety week where participants penned their thoughts about road safety and signed it. The motive of such an event being creating awareness among people on road safety and its associated aspects. This event is an annual event by HILL since last 3 years.
The theme for this year’s Road Safety Week was set as ‘Road Safety – Time for Action’. The Road Safety Week is organized year on year to create awareness among the general public to improve safety on road. HILL is deeply concerned about the mounting toll of deaths on Indian roads, one in every four minutes. Low quality headlights, signaling lights, poor visibility and traffic recognition coupled with, speeding vehicles, drunk driving, low use of helmets and seat belts in vehicles, etc. have resulted in many of these accidents on the roads.
Mr. Ramashankar Pandey, Managing Director, Hella India Lighting Ltd. said, “Road safety is a major public health concern for authorities in India. 1.2 Million (12 Lakhs) Indians have died in road accidents in the last one decade, 5 Million (50 Lakhs) Indians seriously injured and disabled in this period. Millions drive on Indian Roads everyday but 377 of them never return back to their home, 1287 comes back injured every day. This alarming situation can’t be left unattended. Casualties in India account for about 10% of road deaths worldwide. 3% of our GDP is economic loss due to road accidents. This situation is very critical and cannot be left unattended for long”.
Therefore, a mission was brought forward to promote road safety and focus on improving visibility on roads as a key measure to ensure safer roads in India. The campaign was very successful in most of the places, particularly in Delhi, Varanasi, Patna, Chennai and Bangalore. Around 5400 people participated with 24 Road Safety Campaigns Nationwide. 262 safety warriors were enrolled during the campaign.
Through its high technology products, Hella India Lighting Ltd aims to contribute in the area of automotive lighting to reduce road accidents in India. Highways need to be safer as maximum deaths caused there are due to negligence. There is a need for long term commitment and sustainable programs to lower the number on road deaths on Indian roads and HILL is committed to this cause. “This is just the beginning of this nationwide safety mission of Hella India Lighting and bringing Safety enabled Products and awareness among masses are the two key objective of this mission” added Mr. Pandey.
Following activities are done under HILL’s ongoing Safety campaign.
- Engaging drivers with big Fleet Owners at their place and provide safety awareness (More related to road worthiness of vehicle and critical Do’s and Don’ts, especially in the area of Visibility and Signaling equipment’s)
- Organizing Safety Walkathons, Road Safety Games in areas where there is high concentration of stakeholders involved in maintaining adequate safety standards of vehicles running on highways.
3. Involving Schools to sensitize children and youths on the alarming level of road accidents and deaths in India and utilize their voluntary support for “Signature Drive” among their parents and neighbourhood.