June 10th: Road Safety Day 2019

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Created: Wednesday, 19 June 2019 15:26

Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 (UN)

A lost decade?

Commitment of the Argentine State: decrease deaths by 50%

+ 7.42%!

On the first eight years of the UN’s Decade of Action for Road Safety, it has not been possible to significantly reduce deaths in traffic.

So far in the lost decade, 59,738 people have already died.

Although the Argentine State assumed the international commitment to the UN (2011/2020) -like most states in the world- to decrease during the Decade of Action for Road Safety, the number of deaths by 50%, after eight years, according to the figures of Luchemos por la Vida, the deaths did not decrease significantly*, and according to the latest official data available, they increased. Despite some isolated efforts, a State Policy that carries a significant reduction in the number of deaths and injuries in traffic is not perceived.

The World Plan proposed by the United Nations promotes key activities to be carried out in what is called 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, that these conditions were given:

• 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.
• Speed limits compliance, and their reduction.
• Avoid the consumption of alcohol and / or drugs while driving.
• Avoid using cell phones 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:

• Generate serious enforcement.
• Implement systematic and continuous road education in primary and secondary schools, training teachers.
•  Achieve the national unification of a system of serious and responsible granting of driver's licenses, which includes penalty points system 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:

Achieve safer roads by improving the road infrastructure in pursuit of the safety of road users, especially the most vulnerable: pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists, population with increasing mortality.

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

 To put into practice what has been mentioned is the way to try to end the lost decade with fewer deaths and founded hopes of traveling, once and for all, the road to road safety in Argentina.

*According to the figures of Luchemos por la Vida, deaths in traffic accidents in Argentina: 7.659 people in 2010; 7.274 people in 2018, which means a reduction of 5%.

Dr. Alberto Silveira, President