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by Fathima Razik Cader

Taking off from where the introductory article ended (DN 27 May), it might be timely to provide statistics with regard to accidents that are a daily feature on our roads. These figures obtained from the National Road Safety Secretariat (NRSS) of the Ministry of Transport, Highways and Civil Aviation, reveal that, from 1999-2001, on an average, over twentyone thousand people are injured every year due to accidents. Under the categories fatal, grievous and non-grievous, over two thousand of those injured result in death whilst nearly four thousand cases are those with grievous injuries.

The Swedish consultancy firm, SweRoad, actively promoting Traffic Education for schoolchildren, has taken the initiative and has painstakingly collated vital information that has helped in no small measure, to expose the degree of the problems Sri Lanka faces in this regard.

Monetary value is attached to injuries, which is borne by the state and/or families of those injured. Though it is not possible to have factual costs, the method adopted to ascertain such costs is the "Net Output Approach", where the following components are taken into consideration with regard to fatal accidents.

a. Medical costs in treating the victims.

b. Loss to society through contribution by the victim.

c. Police and legal costs.

d. Costs in terms of pain and grief borne by families and loved ones.

e. Damage to vehicle/s involved in the accident.

Cost components with regard to grievous or non-grievous injuries are estimated in more or less a similar manner with a few changes where necessary. Taking these factors into consideration, the cost to the country run into billions - with estimates for the years 1999-2001 costing Rs. 8.13 bn, Rs. 8.79 bn and Rs. 10.25 bn, respectively.

Dissecting the statistics obtained (from 1999-2001), accidents involving children are as a whole, over 20 per cent of the total. Fatal accidents involving children during this period were 756 whilst grievous injuries were sustained by 1947. The following table will give an insight into the actual position.

This clearly indicates that over 250 precious lives (of children) are lost annually on account of road accidents. The most vulnerable age group is between 16-20 years and interestingly, as far as road safety measures are concerned, those under 20 years fall under the children category. Along with this, some under the grievous category also succumb to their injuries resulting in the number of fatalities, rising.

Every life is considered precious - not only those of children. This is why "Vision Zero" - an entirely new way of looking at road safety has come into being. The principle of Vision Zero has been conceived on an ethical base - that it is unacceptable that people are seriously injured or killed whilst on the road. Therefore, Vision Zero lays emphasis on the following:

* That the road system should be so designed as to pay more attention to the needs, mistakes and vulnerabilities of road users.

* That the parameters (when designing the road system) should encompass the level of violence that the human body can tolerate or resist without being killed or seriously injured.

* That the speed of the vehicle, determined by technical standards of both roads and vehicles, be the most important regulating factor for road safety.

These factors however, will not in any way, totally eliminate accidents and the resultant injuries, but as a whole, its long-term objective - that of a road system that makes allowances for human error and still prevents serious injury or loss of life, is worthy of mention.

This principle of Vision Zero should be emulated in Sri Lanka and towards this end, SweRoad, has drawn up the methodology that could be adopted to, in the first place, ascertain the reasons and/or causes of traffic accidents. Divided into four areas - viz; vehicles, roads, road users and environment, accidents are generally caused by the combination of all these areas.

The un-roadworthiness of these vehicles and the defects therein e.g. malfunctioning of brakes, lights, signals, wipers and bad tyres also contribute to a large extent in causing accidents.

With regard to roads - the lack of road capacity to accommodate the steadily increasing number of vehicles, 'black spots' due to bends, narrow roads, bottlenecks and bad surface, and the absence of road signs and even lights in some important places all underline the sad state of affairs in this respect. Add to this the indiscipline of drivers who display callous regard to road rules in addition to being reckless and drunk at times, the pedestrians who also ignore traffic signs and road rules, and the passengers, who whilst travelling are also careless, impatient and show a marked lack of respect towards their safety and that of others, compound the problem into a major catastrophe.

One might wonder what negative role the environment plays to cause traffic accidents. Interestingly, the causes are outlined as hot weather conditions, rain, mist and floods and landslides (as evidenced recently), trees on pavements, walls built close to roads and stray animals on the roads.

In view of these facts, it is vital that the Police Department and its traffic division strictly enforce the law by apprehending offenders on the roads. Whilst (understandably) the law enforcement authorities face many constraints in carrying out their legitimate duties effectively, the onus is on them to address such constraints so that their role in minimizing road accidents will be noteworthy and thereby, contribute towards building a society of law-abiding citizens - be they drivers, pedestrians or passengers. (To be continued)

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