October 2002- Road Safety
2004 Dedicated to Road Safety
It was recently announced by The World Health Organisation (WHO) that World Health Day for the year 2004 will be dedicated to "Safe Roads". Road safety issues have always been hovering around in the background of humanitarian issues and at last a major organisation is bringing it to the forefront. Why? Consider the following facts provided by WHO:
- An estimated 1.17 million deaths occur each year, world wide, due to road accidents.
- The majority of these deaths, about 75%, occur in developing / transition countries (although they account for only 32% of the world's motor vehicles).
- 65% of deaths involve pedestrians and 35% of pedestrian deaths are children.
- Over 10 million people are crippled or injured each year.
- The majority of road crash victims (injuries and fatalities) in developing countries are not the motor vehicle occupants, but pedestrians, motorcyclists, bicyclists and non-motor vehicle (NMV) occupants.
The financial cost is immense, standing at an estimated cost world wide of US$500 billion. To developing countries their share is close to 2% of GNP- NEARLY DOUBLE OF ALL OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE.
The World Bank, DFID and The Red Cross are also recognising that the issue is of "immense human proportions." Consider this as a statistic: In 1998, WHO ranked road accidents as the 9th leading cause of mortality and disease. The study forecasts that by the year 2020, if programmes are not implemented, road crashes will move up to THIRD place in the table of leading causes of death and disability facing the world community - HIV at 10. Read more (pdf).
For more information on road safety issues please visit the Global Road Safety Strategy web site http://www.grsproadsafety.org. Road safety is the responsibility of all road users. Governments alone should not bear the brunt on this. Corporate businesses, government agencies, non-government organisations and the United Nations should all be working together to try and combat this escalating human tragedy.
Organisations and individuals working in developing countries, be they in aid or the commercial sector, should be setting an example on and off the road. Rural populations, children especially, need to be educated and made aware of the dangers so as to get some "road sense".
OCUL are also in the process of developing a child road safety training scheme that could be adopted by schools in an urban or rural environment. The idea behind the scheme is to give children "road sense" thereby making them aware of the dangers of the roadside and of the road itself. We believe that this type of training could be the foundation for safer driving for the next generation. If you are interested in contributing ideas to the development of this project please get in contact with us.
We also provide defensive driving seminars to any organisation that is interested. We come to your office for about 1-2 hours. Take us up on it!
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