Driver and pedestrian safety

For me, the horse simply refers to your vehicle; which places the responsibility to ensure it meets minimum safety standard such as good tyres, brakes, horn, among other things on you. It is also your responsibility to ensure you drive because you are qualified to drive and you are emotionally, mentally and physically fit to […]

For me, the horse simply refers to your vehicle; which places the responsibility to ensure it meets minimum safety standard such as good tyres, brakes, horn, among other things on you. It is also your responsibility to ensure you drive because you are qualified to drive and you are emotionally, mentally and physically fit to drive. It equally places on you the weighty responsibility of obeying traffic rules and regulations as contained in 1 Sam15:22 which says, ‘obedience is better than sacrifice’. The third scripture is found in Ecclesiastes 7:16 which admonishes us thus; ‘’do not be over wicked and do not be a fool – why should you die before your time’’ while Exodus 20:13 captures one of the Commandments thus: ‘thou shall not kill or, thou shall not murder’, meaning killing with a gun, knife or a car is totally abhorred by the Almighty God. I don’t know how the Holy Koran captures  these as my Muslim friends whose assistance I sought could not give me the relevant verses which captures these  relevant admonitions before my deadline but I assure you that I must search for it before my next piece.
  For two weeks, I have beamed my searchlight on pedestrian safety and improving safety on our roads in keeping with the 2015 strategic goals of the Federal Road Safety Corps to reduce road traffic crashes by 20 per cent and fatalities by 30 per cent. When I commenced this column, my first focus was on the increasing blunders by pedestrians. I must state here that unfortunately, no precaution guarantees safety on the roads. Today, I wish to do a detour with a look at the many sins of drivings that results in increased fatalities, but that, I would like to refer to one or two cases of pedestrian -vehicle crashes which occurred outside our shores which either led to deaths or injuries.
The first is the crash which occurred  in August 2004, when a  19-yearold, Mr. James Broom, from Cullompton, Devon, in the United States  was crossing the road outside the Manor Hotel in Fore Street, Cullompton, using a Zebra Crossing when a driver failed to give way and collided with him. As a result of this incident,  Mr Broom suffered a soft tissue injury to his knee.   Broom said: “I was halfway across a pedestrian crossing when I was knocked down. I was taken by ambulance to Tiverton Hospital. The next day I was told that there was a possibility of a cracked bone. As a result I was off work for two months and on returning to work I was sadly made redundant at the end of February 2006.”
The second case is a   crash which occurred in the morning of August 30, 2010 “when Paige Johnson and a friend were running near her home of Aiken, South Carolina. The route was a regular one for many local runners but required running on the shoulder of the roadway. An oncoming pickup truck traveling 45 miles per hour slammed into Johnson (her running partner was grazed but uninjured). Johnson spent the next three weeks in an intensive care unit. A portion of her skull had to be removed due to swelling in her brain. The right side of her face had to be rebuilt through reconstructive surgery while her speech and physical therapy have also proven successful.’’
While Johnson was lucky to survive, others such as, Donna Chen, a 53-year-old mother of three, who was jogging on the shoulder of a Florida road in the early afternoon, was not that lucky as she was hit by a drunk driver and died at the scene almost similar to my late boss whose case I cited last week. The cases cited shows that pedestrian -vehicle crashes know no bounds of color, race, status or environment. It affects both the rich and the poor, literate and illiterate. Every pedestrian; whether joggers, runners or cyclists who engage in this   daily contend with the dangers posed by vehicles and bad drivers. Even if you   live in an area with runner-friendly road infrastructure, which is extremely few in our clime, the fact is that most drivers arrogantly care less about pedestrians. With the increasing number of joggers and keep-fit events especially within the urban centers, the number of runners and cyclists competing for pavement space is increasing daily. This is in addition to the growing dangers posed by distracted drivers who are talking or texting while driving, given fact that pedestrians especially joggers and runners tend to be on the road at odd hours,  dawn and dusk – the worst possible times for visibility to drivers
As I write, I don’t have details of pedestrians killed or maimed on our roads, between 2000 and 2009 in the United States; more than 5,300 pedestrians were killed every year in vehicle-related crashes. The truth is that, because of their vulnerability, a pedestrian will either die or be maimed in collision with a vehicle. These risks underscore the need   for pedestrians and drivers to be cautious to prevent such incidents. Some of the   tips for pedestrians including joggers have been treated. My concern today is on what one of my good friends describes as gross irresponsible driving. Almost all road traffic crashes we must note, causes serious injuries or maybe deaths. However, pedestrians, because of their vulnerabilities, are the group most at risk of severe injuries when they are involved in a road traffic collision. This is why pedestrians must be given right of way by motorists.
What then are some of the irresponsible driving habits that expose pedestrians to serious dangers? Excessive speeding is a major contributor to vehicle-vehicle crashes whether in low or middle income countries. According to the Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps, Boboye Oyeyemi, 50 per cent of road traffic crashes in 2014 were speed-related and this justifies the Corps soon-to-be-enforced speed limiting devices which commences from June 1, 2015. It is not surprising, then, that speeding is vital when dealing with pedestrian-vehicle crashes.