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| Sunday, 13 June 2004 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Road deaths: a national tragedy Continued from last week Therefore under these circumstances double lines are just lines on the road serving no purpose. RDA needs to consider Principles of safe driving and the ability are needs to be considered by the RDA of the road users to comply with them when they draw these lines on the road.
Unauthorised message displays We see various displays on our roads. Some are directly related to official road signs. Some others are neither advertisements nor official signs. One must carefully read these messages between the lines to understand their subtle aims before they are authorised on the roadside. See a collection of such messages displayed on our roadside near schools. These messages indirectly mean that drivers of vehicles who are responsible for accidents. They make no effort to teach children how to use the roads safely. Instead, they cultivate hatred against the drivers. Such created attitudes propagate violence against drivers at sites of accidents. No one has the moral right to take the law into their own hands, and inflict personal injury and damage to property at accident scenes. Following a recent accident near a school a mob went on rampage and attacked and damaged many other vehicles and drivers at random who arrived at the scene later. Dual carriageways In Sri Lanka, dual carriageways are really single lanes because the nearside lane is often used for parking, travel in the opposite direction, as cattle sheds, and often to mix cement etc for building purposes. Thus, development of dual carriageways has not really served its purpose neither to improve traffic movement nor to improve safety. Rapid movement is important to assist a country with its development, for example if transport of fresh vegetables from the hill country to Colombo takes twelve hours, this business will not flourish simply because the vegetables will be rotten on arrival at destination. Thus, the farmers in the hill country would be unable to sell their products. Determinants of safe speed limits Consumers in Colombo will have no vegetables for reasonable prices. Similarly would a tourist be happy to spend six hours on the road to go from Colombo to Kandy due to speed restrictions? If so, only the tourist industry will suffer. No commuter will be able to travel from Kandy or Galle to Colombo and return on the same day. They would also need to find accommodation in Colombo and spend two days instead of one for the same job that they have wanted done in Colombo. This will cost working hours? Thus, slowing down traffic, slows the economic growth too. On the other hand speed kills. That is a fact. This is why a safe speed limit has to be decided, allowing a speed that is acceptable. The safe speed will be determined by (a)vehicular conditions (b)road conditions (c)driving skills (d)pedestrian behaviour (e)vehicle and pedestrian density and (f)stray animals on the road. Putting lower speed limits alone will have only a limited effect without controlling cattle, bicycles, carts, children and villagers stray on the roads. On the other hand speed limits can be increased safely only if all the above factors improve i.e. better road structure, better driver training and testing, better pedestrian discipline and better protection of roads against stray animals. The behaviour of drivers and their passengers in their new cars also need discipline. All new cars come fitted with safety belts but these are seldom used. Seat belts prevent serious injuries and fatalities to a great extent-almost 80% Rules must be made to implement this and rigorously enforced. That is if we are serious about reducing road trauma. overloading and insecure loading has to stop. If overloaded and unfit trucks can collapse at normal speeds and they become time bombs at high speed. Restricting overloading saves lives, property and insurance costs. Night Driving Several decades ago no one would dare to ride even a cycle without a torch or a light at night because the police will detect them and take legal action. Night cycling without lights was a consistently punishable offence then. But today even lorries, and public buses travel at night without appropriate headlights. Today cyclists almost always ride in the dark and impose a very significant risk at night. No policeman ever tries to prosecute such cyclists. There are motorcyclists too who ride at night without light. Research indicates fluorescent clothing, white or light colour helmets and daytime headlights may reduce motorcycle injuries. But most of our riders use dark clothing especially at night. Fluorescent striped belts or clothing although most appropriate are never worn by anyone. This is not because people dislike such clothes or stripes but simply because they have not been adequately informed of its protective role in preventing road accidents. Larger vehicles with only one working headlight are usually interpreted at night as a motor cyclist until it is very close and this alone can contribute to major accidents. Some have no taillights. This imposes a hazard because a vehicle moving at 70 km per hour would approach a three-wheeler without taillights travelling at 15 km per hour in the same direction at a speed of 55 km per hour. In this circumstance, the stopping distance available is usually inadequate when the three-wheeler is spotted under the dipped lights this is being a cause for an accident. Police We all must understand that our police also work under difficult circumstances, and heavily restricted resources. This is exactly why the police should prioritise their strategies with the available resources to achieve the maximum benefit. They should focus on areas where high accident rates have been reported and improve the set-up. Just look at the way our speed checks are done. The police officer usually hides in a shade, uses his radar detector to determine speed and jumps in front of the so-called speeding vehicle indicating them to stop. The usual length they allow for a vehicle to stop is less than 50 feet. The very fact that those vehicles are able to stop in front of the police officer blocking the road means that the vehicle is being driven at a speed that is stoppable within the distance they can see. Thus, in itself it is an indication that the vehicle has been driven at a safe speed. Thus, what is the effect of this speed check in reducing road traffic accidents, probably none? Instead the police should select roads that are reported to have more accidents. They should clearly set up signs of speed limits on those roads and then check vehicles speeds more professionally, using radio to inform an officer placed at a distance where the road is wide and safe for the offending vehicle to be stopped. They should not exercise this risky business of jumping in front of vehicles to stop them. Unfortunately there seem to be little liaison between our Police and the Road Development Authority. This is why many road developments openly flout the most important traffic rules. For example, how often do we find double lines in front of a bus stop? How often do we see Zebra crossing right in front of a school exit gate? How often do we find unwarranted restrictions in safe areas and vice versa? It is apparent that one of the key causes responsible for the current state of affairs is negligence, partly of road users (i.e. drivers of vehicles, commuters and pedestrians), and partly of the government. When buses halt on pedestrian crossings and three-wheelers dash ignoring all rules and regulations, what hope is there when even the police vehicles seem to give way to these rogues on the road? Cultural attitudes To improve our road safety firstly our road culture and attitudes should change. For example, today many people cultivate the idea that all traffic accidents are due to driving errors. On the other hand poor driving conditions have led the drivers to become more aggressive. Large vehicles (double cabs, lorries, buses), and air horns, are used to intimidate other road users. Some individuals including professionals consider such items as essentials for road safety. These things enable them to drive along by terror pushing aside the more vulnerable road users such as cyclists, pedestrians and other small vehicle. Driver behaviour has therefore become more aggressive, and not courteous to each other. This is also why the public has developed a general hatred against the drivers. There should also be adequate manpower to police those roads, as cultural and attitudinal change alone is not enough for drivers, and pedestrians to be disciplined. There should also be a political enthusiasm to improve road safety. Authors : CDA Goonasekera, HJ Suraweera, M Salgado. To be continued |
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News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security Produced by Lake House |
Road visibility in front of your vehicle and being able to stop within
the distance you see is one of the crucial principles of safe driving.
Thus, the road markings and design should cultivate good and safer driving
activities. The need for road markings to identify these subtle but very
important changes is necessary.
