The Bhutanese Leading the way.
The road safety and transport authority (RSTA) has sensitized 420 drivers as of now through its day – long refresher courses on road safety and traffic rules and regulations.
RSTA’s director general Pemba Wangchuk said the main objective is to create awareness on road safety issues and keep people up to date on the rules since they have been receiving lot of complaints on being harassed and fined with no reason.
He said the authority came up with a plan to conduct a daylong sensitization where drivers are refreshed on the road signs and symbols, code of conduct and changes in regulation. The police are also invited to give a session during the daylong course.
He said that they are not sure how the sensitization will help to bring changes and it is too early for them to comment on expected out comes as the program is new. As of now they have conducted the program in Thimphu, Haa and Paro.
Apart from government drivers, taxi drivers and private drivers, they have conducted the same programs for few school principles of Thimphu Thromde, armed forces drivers and Bhutan post drivers.
“Before we know only three types of signals (informatory, monitory and cautionary) and after attending this refresher course, we got to know many. We have come to know more on road marking and I am happy that I have learned a lot from this training,” said Tshedrup Tobgyal, a part time taxi driver.
He also said that in Bhutan many would not know what actually the road markings are and its indications, which is why they end up paying fines.
Tshering Namgyel a private driver said that he took part in a daylong refresher course knowing and hearing the benefits from those that attended in the past. “There is a lot of difference before and after attending this course,” he said, adding that, no driver knows everything on road safety.
“The number of vehicles in the country keeps increasing every year whereby the rules and regulation keeps changing,” he said. “I urge all the fellow driver mates to attend the program.”
Pema Zangmo, a taxi driver from Paro, said that it is a year since she has been waiting for this course. “I kept following up with the RSTA after my registration and today I got a chance to participate. I never knew that the course would be this informative and worth attending.”
“Every driver thinks that once they hold a driving license they know everything but it’s wrong because what we know is very little to what we actually should know,” she added.
