Road Safety Education as a Tool for Social Empowerment and Responsible Citizenship among University Students: A Sociological Perspective toward Achieving SDG 3.6

  • Unique Paper ID: 191053
  • Volume: 12
  • Issue: no
  • PageNo: 721-726
  • Abstract:
  • Road traffic injuries remain a major social and public health concern globally, with young adults accounting for a disproportionate share of deaths and injuries. In India, this situation poses a serious challenge to achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.6, which aims to substantially reduce road traffic fatalities and injuries by 2030. This paper examines road safety education from a sociological and social work perspective, focusing on its role in promoting social empowerment and responsible citizenship among university students. Adopting a conceptual and review-based methodology, the study synthesizes national and international literature on road safety awareness, driver behaviour, and risk perception, along with secondary data reported by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and relevant education policy frameworks. The review identifies a persistent gap between awareness of traffic rules and actual road behaviour among educated youth, highlighting the limitations of information-centric interventions. The paper argues that higher education institutions function as key spaces of socialization where inclusive and value-oriented road safety education can internalize civic responsibility, ethical conduct, and collective accountability. Situated within the broader national vision of SDG 3.6 and Viksit Bharat 2047, the study concludes that education-led behavioural change is essential for protecting human capital and building safer, socially responsible communities.

Copyright & License

Copyright © 2026 Authors retain the copyright of this article. This article is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

BibTeX

@article{191053,
        author = {Vishnu Joshi and Dr. Bigi Thomas},
        title = {Road Safety Education as a Tool for Social Empowerment and Responsible Citizenship among University Students: A Sociological Perspective toward Achieving SDG 3.6},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {},
        volume = {12},
        number = {no},
        pages = {721-726},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=191053},
        abstract = {Road traffic injuries remain a major social and public health concern globally, with young adults accounting for a disproportionate share of deaths and injuries. In India, this situation poses a serious challenge to achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.6, which aims to substantially reduce road traffic fatalities and injuries by 2030. This paper examines road safety education from a sociological and social work perspective, focusing on its role in promoting social empowerment and responsible citizenship among university students. Adopting a conceptual and review-based methodology, the study synthesizes national and international literature on road safety awareness, driver behaviour, and risk perception, along with secondary data reported by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and relevant education policy frameworks. The review identifies a persistent gap between awareness of traffic rules and actual road behaviour among educated youth, highlighting the limitations of information-centric interventions. The paper argues that higher education institutions function as key spaces of socialization where inclusive and value-oriented road safety education can internalize civic responsibility, ethical conduct, and collective accountability. Situated within the broader national vision of SDG 3.6 and Viksit Bharat 2047, the study concludes that education-led behavioural change is essential for protecting human capital and building safer, socially responsible communities.},
        keywords = {Road safety education; Responsible citizenship; Sociological & Social work perspective; Social empowerment; University students; SDG 3.6; NEP 2020},
        month = {},
        }

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