Hyderabad: Techie turns traffic volunteer, promotes road safety

Hyderabad: Aiming to do his bit for making Hyderabad roads safer for commuters and pedestrians, Lokendra Singh, a software professional, is volunteering in controlling vehicular traffic at different junctions in the city.

Moreover, this young techie, also known through X (formerly Twitter) as Hyd Traffic Man, advocates for road safety and shares his experiences on traffic awareness.

Lokendra Singh’s journey into this humanitarian domain began in 2022, when he joined the Hyderabad City Security Council (HCSC) as a traffic volunteer and after six months, he transitioned to the Special Cyberabad Security Council (SCSC), where he assisted with traffic management at several key junctions in the city including MJ Market, Khairatabad Junction, Sangeet Cross Roads and Tank Bund. Mostly, he is found managing traffic and educating commuters at MJ Market Junction.

Speaking to The Hans India, Lokendra Singh, who works as an IT employee at Broadridge, said, “People are not properly aware about road safety management. This needs to be addressed and road safety should be taught, especially in educational institutions. Though India’s literacy rate is nearly 80 per cent, in contrast, the traffic literacy rate is only two per cent. Yet, no one talks about it. So on humanitarian grounds I thought to join in traffic volunteering. For two days a week, I along with other traffic volunteers and traffic police officials manage the traffic. I mostly do volunteering at MJ Market Junction.”

Highlighting about his journey, he said, “In 2019, I joined a driving school expecting that they would teach me road safety rules so that I can become a professional driver.

But unfortunately, nothing has been taught. This compelled me to think about promoting awareness on road safety, and so I joined in traffic volunteering. In these five years, we have done various road safety activities including campaigns on wearing seat belt, avoiding honking and others at several junctions including at MJ Market, Khairatabad Junction, Khajaguda Junction and Tank Bund. I also spread awareness on social media platforms. Apart from this, we also do scientific analysis on how traffic congestion occurs”.

Sharing a few experiences, he said he has seen many people who are unaware of traffic rules, especially pedestrians who try to cross the road without considering the traffic flow. “So I along with several traffic volunteers try to educate them.

Traffic is all about continuous improvement, so whatever efforts we put and changes we see are gradual and not instant. When we do road safety campaigns at junctions, out of 100 people over 90 obey the rules, and that is our achievement”, he added.

Suggesting on traffic enforcement, he pointed out, “To improve the road safety, all four Es should go hand in hand i.e. Education, Enforcement, Engineering and Emergency care”.