As part of this, a 10 days continuous awareness program was undertaken by the City Traffic Police with the help of the general public, trade unions, service organizations like Rotary International, Lions International, various NGOs and Government Departments like Motor Vehicles Department and Government Health Services. Various programs like seminars, workshops, training classes, street dramas, vehicle rallies and other programs were undertaken to create awareness about road accidents. This “CRAFT 1998” was inaugurated by Dr. Kiran Bedi, the former Director General of Police, Delhi, India. The then Chief Minister of Kerala, Mr. E K Nayanar was kind enough to inaugurate a vehicle rally and to participate in the events. This program was a great success and created an atmosphere of friendship between the general public and the police.

As part of this, a 10 days continuous awareness program was undertaken by the City Traffic Police with the help of the general public, trade unions, service organizations like Rotary International, Lions International, various NGOs and Government Departments like Motor Vehicles Department and Government Health Services. Various programs like seminars, workshops, training classes, street dramas, vehicle rallies and other programs were undertaken to create awareness about road accidents. This “CRAFT 1998” was inaugurated by Dr. Kiran Bedi, the former Director General of Police, Delhi, India. The then Chief Minister of Kerala, Mr. E K Nayanar was kind enough to inaugurate a vehicle rally and to participate in the events. This program was a great success and created an atmosphere of friendship between the general public and the police.

Mr. E K Radhakrishnan and Mr. John Jacob, two young Rotarians, were active in the CRAFT 98 program and were very emotionally and sincerely attached to the awareness programs conducted by the Kozhikode City Traffic Police. These two young men brought the idea of creating the volunteers force for road safety and rescue operation in Calicut, in the line of Cochin City Action Force to Mr. Pradip Kumar CM, then Station House Officer, City Traffic Police, Kozhikode. This was readily accepted by him and discussions were held with the then the Asst. Commissioner of Police, In charge of Traffic Mr. P M Janardhanan and the thenCity Police Commissioner M/s. Meera Rawat. The then Inspector General of Police, Kozhikode Mr. Jacob Punnoose who was sincerely interested in reducing traffic accidents was very happy to hear the idea.

When an accident happened the general public usually acted only as onlookers. A victim of the accident was not immediately transported to a hospital and was generally left on the road till a police party reached the spot. Several victims were left on the road till death occurred. Most of the valuable “golden hour” was wasted on the road which lead to several deaths. This continued without any serious program to address it by the government or any other agencies.

CRAFT 1998 was the launching pad for Trauma Care Society, Kozhikode (TRACK). A meeting was convened by Kozhikode City Commissioner of Police and its Traffic Unit to discus it. Prominent citizens of Calicut, Trade unions, representatives of Rotary International, Lions International and Officers from Government departments like the Police Department, the Motor Vehicles Department, the Health Services, the Indian Medical Association and several NGOs participated in the meeting. The project of starting a volunteer organization for Road Safety and Rescue operations was well received by the group. It was decided to conduct another discussion after a few days and that meeting was conducted and an ad hoc committee was formed to prepare the memorandum of the society and the bylaws and to complete other formalities for the registration of the same.

It was decided that the organization should not be a paper organization and should be a live active organization in the field. So it was decided to train volunteers who could do field work. The trade union organizations readily agreed to take up the challenge by supplying volunteers for the task. The meeting unanimously agreed that the best volunteers would be the city auto rickshaw drivers. A hundred auto rickshaw volunteers were listed within a few days and they were given training in 3 subjects, Road Traffic Safety Awareness, Basic Life Support and Situational Leadership. The classes were conducted on 3 Sundays and these 100 people were given identity cards.

Trauma Care Society had already received a guarantee from the main hospitals in Calicut that the Trauma Care Volunteers would not be made to stay in the hospital till the family members arrived. Secondly, the hospitals agreed to take over accident victims and to give proper medical attendance so that these volunteers were freed from the task of spending money from their pockets. The Police department agreed that their officers would not compel any good Samaritans to become witnesses in the case.

The volunteers who got the identity cards were made free of these problems and they were empowered to conduct rescue operations both as trained men and as free of legal complications and monetary problems. Our volunteers started this work of rescuing road traffic accidents and shifting them to the hospitals on a regular basis and slowly the number of volunteers started increasing with people from all walks of life joining this volunteer force. Within a few years of TRACK Kozhikode activity we could claim that no injured person in a road traffic accident was left on the road unattended. During these years we could impart training to more than 54000 volunteers and this activity has already become a common man’s charity work.

The difference between many other volunteer organizations and TRACK is that the other organizations generally were confined to the idea of creating a few trained volunteers and imparting their service to the general society. TRACK has changed the concept into one of making the general public as such, volunteers for the society. We have succeeded in making society itself take care of its problems. In 2001 a disastrous earthquake happened in Gujarat state. The government and the people were totally unprepared for a disaster on this scale. This incident also revealed the ineptness of the concerned agencies to respond. This also showed the lack of preparedness of the common man during such disasters. This was a message to Trauma Care also. We immediately assessed our ordinary volunteers’ ineptness during such large scale incidents. Trauma Care decided to train selected volunteers in a more professional way for responding to such big events. In 2003 we began Disaster management training camps to train volunteers. We can proudly claim that we are the first nongovernmental organization to start such a project in India. This program has so far being very successful. We are training volunteers of Corporates, NGOs, Government Agencies and Local Self Government in Disaster Management operations.