Road fatalities could be curbed if targets set

Oct 07, 2009 News

Numbers of deaths, serious injuries and costly damage to vehicles due to road accidents can be dramatically lessened if reduction targets are set, made public and if there is a concerted attempt to get all stakeholders to buy into them.
Expressing this view is Mr Terrence Fletcher, a local Civil Engineer and head of the Caribbean Association of Roads (CAR).
CAR is a body set up by CARICOM to deal with a vision for roads transport in the Region including road safety.
The Association held a forum at the CARICOM Secretariat recently and the concept of setting regional and national casualty reduction targets for Caribbean countries was the emerging consensus, Fletcher said.
“The idea is to set the targets of road safety deaths for the year and then not to keep it secret but to publicize it to the extent that it becomes known in every household,” Fletcher said.
He said, for example, that the Police can set a target that they are working towards under 100 deaths this year or under 25 in each quarter of this year.
The next thing to do is to request the assistance of all stakeholders including the public in ensuring that this target is not exceeded,” he said, because the public should be told what the target is so that they can buy into it because the Police don’t have the resources to do it by themselves.
He identified insurance companies, Local Government Councils at Regional Neighbourhood and Community levels and the media, as some other stakeholders whose concerted effort can help reduce deaths on the road.
The Traffic Department must enlighten every man, woman, and child on the target.
Insurance companies who have to find money when people die by road accidents could proactively work to reduce these payments by investing some sums in road safety signs and programmes in relation to the target.
He remarked that every time there is one death less the insurance company makes a profit.
He asked what are the insurance companies investing in road safety.
“Can you imagine if the Insurance Companies get on board what would happen? One road safety sign costs $25,000. Some Insurance Companies can afford to set up 10 or 20 signs along the roadways. These signs can be very effective. The more the signs, the merrier.”
Local Government bodies in rural communities can play a very important role too..
He stressed:”What is wrong with the Local Government Councils getting together and working out strategies for keeping the cows, horses and other animals in their community off the road? Just getting together, just recognizing that it could be their relative or their child who dies when the black cow runs into the car.”
He added: “With respect to the media, in their reports they must not just put that somebody has died. The media must put in their report that somebody has died and that makes it the 78th death for the year and that means that the target is not more than 21 for the remainder of the year.”
“That message must be put at the beginning or the end of each road fatality report,” he stressed:
“We feel that if every single man woman and child knew that the target was 99 before now and this year end everyone would pull together to make it 99 or less.”
He asked, perhaps rhetorically, “What is the Guyana casualty reduction target for the last quarter of this year? Does anybody know?
Kaieteur asks: “Do you?”

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Road fatalities could be curbed if targets set

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