The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Three Es to reduce road deaths

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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Three Es to reduce road deaths

Staff Reporter

Education, enforcement and engineering reduced drinking and driving fatalities

— Photo: K. Gopinathan

Showing the way: Gururaj, head of the Department of Epidemiology, NIMHANS and Santikarnachmarnaitarn, Regional Adviser to WHO for Disability, Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation at the workshop in Bangalore on Friday.

BANGALORE: A strong enforcement campaign, along with proper dissemination of information against drinking and driving, has helped Australia reduce the number of road accidents and resultant deaths.

The number of road deaths had increased constantly from 1925 (700) to 1970 (3,700) at which point the country took some serious decisions to help reduce road fatalities. Since then, the trend has reversed and in 2004, the country recorded the lowest road accident deaths ever (1,596). Still, these casualties have cost the Australian community $17 billion.

This formed part of the presentations by Des Myers, an Australian road safety adviser, at a National Consultation Workshop on Drinking and Driving, jointly organised by Global Road Safety Partnership, the World Health Organisation, the World Bank, the Global Transport Knowledge Partnership and Bangalore-based Transport Training Institute and Consultancy here on Friday.

Mr. Myers, a former police officer in Victoria, said the three Es had been a prescription for success in road safety — education, enforcement and engineering. Providing a conscious awareness of the risks of driving; highly visible, active and effective road policing activities and safety features on roads, better vehicles and protection from road-side objects are the components of the three Es.

Turning point

The turning point in Australia was the introduction of a slew of enforcement measures. Compulsory wearing of seat belts and child restraints in vehicles were introduced in the beginning. Then came road safety initiatives — speed cameras, law enforcement on speed control, robust legislation, random testing for alcohol, better equipment for speed enforcement and alcohol interventions, strategic planning and practical enforcement tactics, effective intelligence gathering, targeted enforcement campaigns, constant advertising and reduced speed limits were some of the initiatives, Mr. Myers said.

He noted that the enforcement has been so vigorous in Australia that the police conducted nearly 30 lakh alcohol screened tests during 2006-07 as against the target of 29 lakh in the province of Victoria itself. The Victorian police investigated nearly 44,000 accidents and assessed 3.4 crore vehicles as a part of mobile speed camera operations.

Mr. Myers said the police were authorised to stop any vehicle and breath test the driver at any time. Heavy penalties, for drink driving with fine starting from $300 up to $3,000 and imprisonment are imposed. The courts will cancel licences for repeated offenders. On the occasion, the organisers of the workshop released a practice manual, brought out with the help of a number of organisations, including NIMHANS, Bangalore.

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