Educate them first

25 January 2008

I THINK the best way to create awareness about the dangers of jaywalking is to first educate the people about its consequences. Jaywalkers endanger their own life as well as those of others, especially surprised motorists.

Once awareness is created then fines and penalties can be imposed if people continue breaking rules. It becomes the responsibility of the person to adhere to the rules and if he breaks them he should be made to understand the consequences.

I am saying this because the other day I saw police officers stopping jaywalkers and penalising them. Many were caught unawares and were bewildered not knowing why the police was apprehending them, despite having crossed those same roads for years.

For any campaign, the first step must be creating awareness. Simply imposing fines does not work as you can see that still many rules are broken namely speeding, illegal parking, etc.