Alarmed over the high incidence of road mishap casualties (34 deaths a day), Senator JV Ejercito, Vice Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Public Services, renewed his call for the immediate enactment of road safety measures that he has filed in the Senate.
Speaking before delegates of the “Road Safety in Asia 2017” forum held at Heritage Hotel, Ejercito cited data from the Philippine Statistics Authority which showed a consistent increase in the number of road accident deaths .
According to PSA, in 2006, the country registered 6,869 deaths due to road crash. But in 2014, the country registered 8,666 road crash-related deaths- or 1,797 more than the 2006 death toll.
The PSA records also showed that 56 percent of road traffic fatalities were due to motorcycle accidents. Since 2010, motorcycle riders have been the top victims of road crashes, followed by pedestrians at 19 percent, drivers of four-wheeled vehicles at 14 percent, and their passengers at 11 percent.
The Department of Health, on the other hand, has said that road accident is the fourth leading cause of death in the country, with at least one person killed every 17 hours, an average of 43 Filipinos killed every month; and 509 killed every year.
Among the measures Ejercito has been pushing for to promote road safety are Senate Bill No. 1446 (SBN 1446), or the “Anti-Overloading Act of 2017,” SBN 1457, or the “Dash Cam Law,” and SBN 1447, or the “Child Safety in Motor Vehicle Act of 2017.” He has also filed SBN 1375, which seeks to create the National Transportation Safety Board that shall engage in the investigation and determination of probable cause of transportation accidents involving all types of public utility vehicles or vessels.
“Also, although I am not one of the authors, I am actively campaigning for the proper implementation of the Anti-Distracted Driving Law, or ADDA, that bans the use of hand-held gadgets such as cellphones, tablets, among others,” Ejercito said.
Meanwhile, the Global Road Safety Partnership in collaboration with the International Road Assessment Programme (iRap) hosted the 10th annual Asia Pacific Road Safety Forum in Manila in the wake of the need to address one of the top ten killers in the world.
About 250 road safety stakeholders and advocates from all over the Asia Pacific joined the event in which speakers talked about helmet and child safety seat standards, road assessment programs, sharing of best practices and working together to halve the global deaths due to road crashes by 2020. Participants came from Thailand, Vietnam, India, China, Nepal, New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia and the Philippines.
Global Road Safety Partnership CEO Dave Cliff said the numbers have gone up to 1.34 million road crash fatalities per year.
The World Health Organization launches a Save Lives package that provides countries with an easy and implementable priority list of actions on road safety.
“The save lives package talks about six key components and 22 interventions countries can base on to address road safety,” say Jonathon Passmore of the World Health Organization.
The six components in the WHO Save Lives package include speed management, leadership on road safety, infrastructure design and improvement, vehicle safety standards, enforcement and post-crash survival. All components help countries reach the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals on road safety.
Rob McInerney, chief executive officer of iRap, also stressed the need for “3-stars or better” roads in the countries and presented studies that address economics and decrease in the number of road crash deaths and injury. A star-rating objectively measures the risk of death and serious injury on roads for pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, and vehicle occupants.
Star ratings are raised by providing proven safety features like pedestrian crossings, safe intersection layouts, safety barriers and road markings.
WHOstudies showed that road crashes are preventable citing risk factors involved. Because it is preventable, the use of road ‘crashes’ is more appropriate instead of ‘accidents’ to refer to traffic incidents.