Thaindian News

By Gina Gomez
Sep 6, (THAINDIAN NEWS) The innovative police campaign to call attention to the importance of crosswalks, known as zebra crossing, grabbed eyeballs in Moscow, last Friday. The zebra painted horses walked back and forth across some of the busiest intersections of the city to create awareness of the necessity of zebra crossing. The recent survey revealed that rash driving in Moscow has claimed a lot of lives and to stop these horrific accidents the police took the initiative to remind people about traffic signals.

The light gray horses were painted with black stripes to give the look of a zebra. On their back they carried yellow signs which asked the people and drivers to be “careful” as the children are on their way to the school. The drivers who break traffic signals have their own excuses. Sometimes they say that it is really difficult to stop at crosswalks, as the car behind them might not stop which might lead to accident. The surveys reveal that in the first 6 months of 2010 near about 378 people were killed and more than 6,600 were injured on zebra crossings in Russia and in Moscow 43 people were killed.

Galina Pravdyuk, a police officer who runs educational programs in Moscow schools said that the school children are never safe while crossing the street even when the green light is on. She told the school children that they have to take care of themselves as the driving culture of Moscow is at such a “low level”. On Friday, “zebras” were greeted well by the citizens and Ksenia Davidova, who was charged with leading the Zebra painted horses across the intersections of the city said that people accepted this movement of the police whole heartedly.