The patient dog (ll)

This epidemic is invisible through its ubiquity, yet when we stop to add together the daily toll in each neighborhood or city, each country and region, we can comprehend the true tragedy:3,500people killed every day, thousands more seriously injured;260,000childeren killed every year, and  more than a million more seriously injured, with barely a voice raised […]

This epidemic is invisible through its ubiquity, yet when we stop to add together the daily toll in each neighborhood or city, each country and region, we can comprehend the true tragedy:3,500people killed every day, thousands more seriously injured;260,000childeren killed every year, and  more than a million more seriously injured, with barely a voice raised in protest’’.
Yet, according to the celebrated Bishop, ‘this is predominantly a killer of the poor. It is the poorest communities which live alongside the fastest roads. It is the poorest children who have to negotiate the most dangerous routes to school. It is the most vulnerable road users, pedestrians and cyclists, who are at great risk yet…’’.Out of the 1.3million killed each year and more than 50million injured, a toll greater than deaths from Malaria, ninety percent of these road casualties are in low and middle income countries such as ours. Yet it is the same group who are potential victims that rarely think safety should be a priority. They are the ones who more often throw decency to the wind; assault and abduct Marshals for cautioning them against acts capable of maiming or even killing them. They are the ones whose vehicles are rarely maintained because of the economic realities. Yet these same groups would savour pepper soup joints, gulp available liquor even on credit while the least safety apparatus in their vehicles are ignored. These same groups delude themselves always as their choice of travel is often at great risks; night journeys, bad weather driving, bumper to bumper driving (tail-gazingith a silver spoon. They forget that this hidden road injury epidemic is a crisis for public health and a major contributor to the causes of poverty.
The Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, the United Kingdom, Denmark and Japan have made significant progress in redressing road crash. Underlying this progress is the consciousness on the part of motorists to do it right while realizing the need to adopt new approach to road safety. One of this new approach to road safety is the Safe System approach which requires that the road system be designed to expect and accommodate human error, recognizing that preventions efforts notwithstanding, road users remain fallible and crashes will occur. It exploits synergies between measures that address infrastructure, vehicles and driver behavior when they are designed in concert. The basic strategy of a Safe System approach is to ensure that in the event of a crash, the impact energies remain below the threshold likely to produce either death or serious injury. This threshold will vary depending upon the level of protection offered to the road users involved. For example, the chances of survival for an unprotected pedestrian hit by a vehicle diminish rapidly at speeds greater than 30km/h, whereas for a properly restrained motor vehicle occupant, the critical impact speed is 50km/h for side impact crashes and 70km/h for head-on crashes
Therefore, all that we require is a change in how we use the road by exercising patience which in the Thesaurus, is described as ‘’the capacity of enduring hardships or inconvenience without complaint, or tolerance. In the Make Roads Safe manual, what I find most instructive and which has formed the thrust of this page is the need for individual change. Such a change should embrace the fact that a significant number of lives can be saved by improving how people manage just a few human behaviors, including use of seatbelt; wearing a crash helmet; tackling inappropriate speed and drinking and driving.
This reminds me of a recent experience in one of the churches where I went to give a talk as part of my domesticating public enlightenment strategy meant to reinforce safety consciousness. Shortly after the brief safety talk during the 7am service, I stepped out for a break, waiting for the next service when one of my officers drew my attention to a family driving out with their baby lapped in the front by the husband. When we approached them and politely advised that the baby be moved to the back seat, the wife who was driving bluntly refused while the husband, like the folly of the first Adam, just sat there complacent.
Such complacency has robbed families of their bread winners. Robbed the nation of individuals whose contributions would have helped in Nation building.  Unfortunately we allow the abstract numbers to deflect our attention from the reality of the lives of those affected. Yet such lives could have been saved by a change in behavior especially in the use of seat belt, crash helmet and inappropriate speed. Unfortunately, impatience ranks high in the human weaknesses displayed on the road daily; the tendency to drive above the speed approved by law all in the name of meeting a business appointment and the tendency to drive and phone on the wheels in total disregard of the law and the safety implications among others
These behaviors for me provides the basis for the prediction by WHO that by 2015, road crashes will be the leading cause of premature death and disability for children aged five and above. The epidemic, is said to rob more families of their loved ones and their livelihood as the number of those killed doubles to well over two million per year by 2030.
Concluded