A cross sectional study on the existing gap between knowledge and practice of road safety among government colleges in chennai

Every week nearly 2,650 people get killed and 9,000 get injured due to traffic accidents. In 2017, latest year for which data is available, 137,423 people died and 469,900 people got injured due to road accidents in India. Thus it is very essential that we understand the knowledge level of the college students and the practices and thus identify the gap if it exists. Objective: To study the knowledge of the respondents on Road Safety and practices and identity the existing gap between knowledge and practice. Methodology: A cross sectional study was done with semi structured questionnaire was used to obtain data from 420 students who drive two wheelers were taken in the study. Government colleges with co -education were selected to collect the data. SPSS version 20 was used for data entry, cleaning and analysis. Results: The knowledge level of study participants regarding road signs was considerably high especially in case of what do the traffic signal lights indicate (95%), not to horn (75%) zebra crossing (94%) and pedestrian prohibited (84%). All the students agreed that driving without a valid license is an offence and chance of accidents increase when driving bikes without a helmet 8% of the students did not feel that using mobiles while driving was offense. 77% of the respondents agree to the fact that they travel in triples to college and majority (55%) of them were males. Conclusion: Good knowledge about road safety did not lead into prudent traffic practices by younger generation. More concentration on sensitisation programs are needed.