Bengaluru's Police Traffic Park educates children on road safety with interactive learning

Bengaluru, NT Bureau: In the heart of Bengaluru, the Police Traffic Park near St. Mark's Circle provides a unique and interactive educational experience, teaching children about road safety.

The park, which has been in operation for around 20-25 years, is part of the Bengaluru Traffic Police’s initiative to instill safe traffic practices in young students. With practical demonstrations and engaging activities, the park aims to create a lasting impact on children's understanding of road rules.

The park's primary objective, according to Deputy Commissioner of Bengaluru Traffic Police, Kuldeep Kumar Jain, is to offer hands-on learning experiences that help children grasp traffic rules.

Students from various schools are brought to the park daily, except during summer vacations, to participate in one- to one-and-a-half-hour sessions.

These sessions focus on essential road safety practices like understanding traffic signals, road signs, zebra crossings, and yellow box junctions. A key feature of the park is its setup, which replicates real-life traffic situations with miniature road networks, complete with functioning traffic lights, road markings, and parking zones.

This design enables children to engage with their surroundings and observe traffic behaviour in a controlled environment. The initiative is part of the Students Association for Road Safety (SARS) program, which works closely with local traffic police stations to ensure students have access to these educational sessions.

The park operates on a 50-day rotation system, with each of the city's 50 traffic police stations responsible for bringing a school to participate. This ensures that every school gets a turn to visit and that the lessons reach a wide range of students.

Auto and cab drivers are also encouraged to attend these sessions, broadening the initiative’s scope beyond schoolchildren. In addition to the current activities, the traffic department is exploring ways to integrate road safety into school curriculums, a move aimed at reinforcing the lessons learned at the park.

Jain also emphasised the importance of teaching children these lessons early, so they can not only follow the rules themselves but also pass the knowledge on to their families. Despite the park’s success, Jain noted that keeping children engaged during the sessions can be challenging.

To address this, traffic police officers are trained to maintain the students’ attention through interactive teaching methods. Feedback is continually gathered to make improvements and enhance the quality of education provided.