An important lesson: Traffic police drive around to schools, teaching road safety

A mobile theatre bus helps students learn traffic rules with the help of visuals.

KARACHI: Karachi traffic police have come up with the innovative idea of a mobile theatre to create awareness of traffic rules and road safety measures among children.

Equipped with a multimedia system and two television screens, the air-conditioned mobile theatre, fitted in a traffic police bus, is visiting the city’s major schools. In a one-hour programme, the traffic police experts deliver lectures to students about road safety and the traffic duties of a responsible citizen.

The bus has a 20-seat capacity, in which children can sit and watch videos along with their instructors.



“We teach them the basics with the help of pictures, cartoons and videos,” said inspector Muhammad Arif, one  of the instructors. “This may one day save them from fatal accidents.”  Arif said that children are good learners and they respond to the lectures and ask questions. “We teach them to stop their parents and drivers from overspeeding or from using mobile phones while driving.”

Arif added that they use visuals to show the benefits of using seatbelts and following traffic signals, while also teaching the importance of using indicators properly.

Traffic police claimed that they will cater to all educational institutions and organisations that want their students and employees trained on road safety.

Officials added that the theatre aims to train the country’s future drivers. “The initiative is part of our road safety awareness campaign and we are focusing on children in middle and high school,” said traffic DIG Arif Hanif, while talking to The Express Tribune. “Every school that has a lot of students is welcome to approach us and we will visit and train their students free of charge.”

Published in The Express Tribune, March 29^th, 2014.