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21,000 students benefit from traffic awareness initiative

The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), Dubai Police, Dubai Health Authority and Emirates Transport launched the initiative in 2010.

The initiative titled ‘Child Safety - a Shared Responsibility’, coordinated government efforts to disseminate traffic awareness among children and mothers.

Over 21,000 students from 127 schools in Dubai benefitted from traffic awareness campaigns carried out by four government entities over the past three years. The initiative, which was titled ‘Child Safety - a Shared Responsibility’, coordinated government efforts to disseminate traffic awareness among children and mothers, and addressing traffic safety requirements in school zones.

The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), Dubai Police, Dubai Health Authority and Emirates Transport launched the initiative in 2010. “The objectives of the initiative echo the general objectives of the Dubai Government in the field of traffic awareness and safety. It serves the specific objectives of the Traffic Safety Committee at the Dubai Government level, and matches the overall objectives of the participating government entities. Modern trends of awareness activities rely on the concerted efforts of multiple entities to serve the common objectives of every locality or emirate in terms of security and safety,” said Maitha bin Udai, CEO of RTA Traffic and Roads Agency.

She stressed that results achieved over the past few years added to the success of the initiative and prompted the organisers to put more efforts towards broadening its scope. Bin Udai added that plans are 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 to propagate traffic awareness concepts among road users.

Over the past three years, over 70 awareness leaflets, of which more than 700,000 copies have been printed, were published as a result of the initiative.

The initiative contributed to serving the needs of 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 6,700 school bus drivers and more than 5,000 bus conductors have been trained and licensed.