By Hasan Kamoonpuri
MUSCAT--The Ministry of Education, Royal Oman Police and Shell Development Oman launched Road Safety Awards 2010 here yesterday. The motto of this year's competition is "Altering Undesirable Traffic Practices ... Towards A generation Aware of Traffic Rules." Participants from school students and teachers will focus on highlighting the negative habits while driving through projects, researches, stories or drawings. The Awards aim to raise road safety awareness and instill road safety values in the community.
"The Road Safety Awards contribute actively in raising road safety awareness among all the members of the community; thus all the public and private schools in the Sultanate are to take part in the competition in order to encourage the concerned people in the educational sector to workout projects, researches, stories, drawings and any other activity that would instill and inspire them with road safety values," said Dr. Sana al Bulushi, Director General, National Centre of Career Guidance in the Ministry of Education, and the Chairperson of the Road Safety Awards executive team, at a press conference here yesterday.
Since it was first inaugurated in 2005, the Road Safety Awards has been mainly focuses on projects, researches, stories and drawings that express issues of road safety, through studying a certain phenomenon and proposing solutions to deal with it. In addition, the Awards have also been concerned with proposing initiatives and necessary actions to correct inappropriate traffic practices as well as reinforcing the appropriate practices through using expressive drawings or stories to convey the message.
Over speeding, ignoring seat belt and using mobiles while driving are main areas of concern of this year's Road Safety Awards competition of the ministry, especially since studies and statistics suggests that these are the main causes of road accident fatalities. It is worth mentioning that awards prizes total RO 13,275, divided as following: RO 9,000 for the best three projects, RO 1,300 for the best five teachers' researches, RO1,000 for the best five students' researches, RO 1,000 for the best five stories and RO 975 for the best 12 students' drawings.
Lieutenant colonel Abdullah al Ghailani, Director, Driving License Department and representative of ROP in the main team of the awards says: "the Road Safety Awards is among the highly valued initiatives that ROP is keen to cooperate and participate in. This initiative carries a valuable educational dimension and honourable objectives, aiming to raise up a generation aware of road safety and willing and capable to limit road accidents and their negative consequences."
Hilal al Ma'wali, Shell Development-Oman's External Affairs Manager stated "the most important objective of the awards is to raise awareness to alter wrong behaviours by some drives that lead to wasting innocent lives. We hope that the Road Safety Awards help create a future generation aware of the importance of following traffic rules and that lives of people do not get lost in road accidents." It important to note that February 28, 2011 will be the last date to receive participants' entries. Winners will be announced and rewarded in a big ceremony the next academic year.
© Oman Daily Observer 2010
