As part of its initiative towards road safety, Nissan India announced on Friday that the company and India cricket legend Kapil Dev have launched #beanissanblindspotter,a multi-partner initiative to identify some of the country’s worst accidents blindspots.
A press release from the vehicle maker said the campaign in Delhi and Chennai is being run in collaboration with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways of India (MoRTH), the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) and the Indian Road Safety Campaign (IRSC). Kapil Dev will also play a key role in raising the profile of blindspots on India’sIndia’s roads as an ambassador for the initiative.
The campaign starts from 4th February 2022 and will launch with a mass media’ call to action” for crowdsourced data, which will be collected and pinned on a digital map by MapMyIndia, India’sIndia’s leading provider of digital maps and geospatial navigation.
Blind spots will only be marked following formal verification by IRSC, including a physical inspection.
The initiative will generate awareness of road safety by encouraging motorists to identify and map accident hotspots on a dedicated microsite, bringing positive change and making the Indian roads safer for everyone, as well as contributing to the OEMs global ambition of achieving zero fatalities involving its vehicles, the company said.
Working with IRSC, the initiative includes mapping blind spots, creating a road safety audit and surveys with bus drivers, government officials and engineers. This data will be used to generate a detailed study of accident spots with on-ground activation supported by engineering interns in Delhi/NCR and Chennai.
Once the data is collected, with support from the government, the NGO partner (IRSC) will conduct workshops for traffic police personnel and other stakeholders based on the on-ground study of the blind spots, with an aim of turning them into safe spots.
Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Government of India, said, “Blind Spots on the roads are accident-prone areas that often lead to fatal outcomes and it’s welcoming to see that companies like Nissan India are addressing this cause with great attention and passion. The campaign by Nissan, with the support of IRSC, will help to collect the crucial data for the blind spots, which will be extremely important to make roads in and around Delhi and Chennai even safer and save many lives. This is a crowdsource initiative that calls for people in these cities to contribute to this campaign and provide more information about blind spots in their daily commute so a collective action can be explored to eliminate and reduce road fatalities. I congratulate and wish the team the best of luck for their CSR efforts.”
SIAM spokesperson said road safety is one of the primary concerns today. The campaign focuses on the concerning issue of the blind spots in the country and will work towards adopting best practices on our roads. SIAM is pleased to support Nissan in this noble cause of generating awareness about road safety and working towards preventing accidents caused by blind spots in India.
Rakesh Srivastava, Managing Director, Nissan Motor India, said, “The campaign will allow two-way communication with the public through a dedicated microsite. We are proud to launch this campaign with the support of Kapil Dev, the government and our NGO partner IRSC.”