June 10th: Argentinian Road Safety Day Why don’t deaths decrease in Argentina?

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Created: Tuesday, 12 June 2018 15:21

International decrease of deaths in traffic accidents

     Even though the UN has declared the years 2011-2020 as the “Decade of Action for Road Safety” and the participating countries commited themselves to take actions that lead to diminishing deaths in traffic by a 50%, still, in Argentina, after seven years, sustainable progress that reduces deaths and wounded people significantly is nowhere to be seen.

     The World Plan proposed by the United Nations promotes key activities to be carried out in what it calls 5 Pillars of Action for Road Safety. One of the pillars is to achieve safer road users. This is not being achieved in Argentina since it would mean, especially, to reach:

• permanent and generalized use of helmet on moped, motorcycles and bikes
• permanent and generalized use of seat belts and child restraint systems on the rest of the vehicles
• permanent and generalized enforcement of speed limits, alcohol and/or drug use by drivers
• avoid using the cell phone while driving
• generalized granting of pedestrian priority

To accomplish these achievements and travel the path of the countries that managed to significantly reduce the number of victims in transit, it is essential to:

• Generalize effective controls on streets and routes, with effective sanctions against offenders.
• Implement systematic and continuous road safety education in primary and secondary schools, training teachers.
• To achieve the national unification of a system of serious and responsible granting of driver's licenses, which includes the license by points and the training for all drivers.
• Also, to incorporate into our Criminal Code crimes against Road Safety, to impose    prison sentences for serious offenders.

     In the other Pillars there are also important pending tasks, of which the following should be highlighted:

     To achieve safer roads and mobility by improving the road infrastructure in pursuit of all users road safety, especially the most vulnerable: pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists, population with increasing and deadly accidents.

    Safer vehicles advancing in the legal obligation of the inclusion, in each type of vehicle, of thenew technologies of passive and active safety for the reduction of accidents, as in the safest countries.

     It is, in short, about doing what needs to be done to save the 20 lives that are lost each day in the traffic.

Dr. Alberto Silveira

President