Main Content
Highlights
Australian action could cut Asia's road toll
Although the World Health Organisation's much publicised report on traffic injuries directed most of its recommendations to the governments of developing nations, it also proposed a list of specific actions for countries like Australia.
Chief among these was the suggestion that government persuade local vehicle manufacturers to redesign the front sections of their cars to ensure that any impact with a pedestrian or cyclist causes the minimum possible injury.
It said such redesigning would not just trim back the local road toll but potentially have an even greater flow-on effect in developing countries where pedestrians and cyclists make up by far the largest proportion of the annual 50 million road injuries now being recorded around the world.
On top of that, the report estimates 1.2 million people are being killed on world roads each year and unless drastic action is taken to reverse the trend the figure could climb by 65% over the next 20 years. Although Australia stands out in the report as one of the few countries with a sophisticated system for addressing road safety, it is also at the centre of a region with the worst record for road carnage.
According to the report, 60% of road deaths occur in the Asia-Pacific Region - despite the fact that it has only 16% of the world's vehicles. If the trend is allowed to continue, road deaths in China could jump by 92% by 2020 while in India they could climb by 147%.
While urbanisation and "motorisation" is rocketing ahead in the region, road infrastructure, safety measures and trauma care lags far behind, says Dr Hisashi Ogawa, one of the World Health Organisation's regional advisers.
"Road accidents are a huge economic drain," he says. Research indicates that the direct costs of road crashes in Thailand are as high as 3% of annual GDP. This does not even include costs from lost productivity."
The report urges more international cooperation to help developing countries build the systems they need to tackle road safety effectively.
But it also suggests many developed countries could do more to improve their current road safety performance.
For these countries it recommends:
- Requiring all new road projects to be subject to a separate and independent road safety audit;
- Requiring daylight running lights for all two wheeler vehicles - and possibly four-wheelers too; and
- Providing basic first aid training to commercial vehicle drivers because they are usually the first at the scene of an accident.
