April 22, 2007	Sunday	Rabi-us-Sani 04, 1428

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RAWALPINDI, April 21: The government plans to unveil a national road safety strategy and plan of action by the end of 2007 to effectively cut the volume of deaths and injuries linked to road traffic crashes.

The strategy would be submitted to the National Road Safety Council for approval.

The NRSC is an empowered body with the minister for communications as its chairman and the federal ministers for health, education and provincial ministers for transport as its members. It is likely that certain parts of the strategy may be required legal cover, therefore, the matter would be referred to the federal cabinet for approval, Executive Director of National Road Safety Secretariat (NRSS), Aizaz Ahmed told Dawn.

Certainly, the Road Safety Act of 1966 has become impracticable and requires redrafting to incorporate new safety standards necessitated by growing traffic accidents as roads have shrunk due to ever increasing number of public and private transport.

Road traffic injuries are a public health epidemic that costs the country millions of rupees. Bringing about a reduction in the road traffic toll among youth requires both political will and financial investments in prevention efforts targeting young people.

Pakistan lacks the planning of road transport systems and urban development has not accommodated the needs of all road users. Frequently motorized transport has been catered for when developing transport infrastructure, while non-motorized transport and other uses of transport and land space “such as children’s recreational spaces” have received considerably less attention.

In some cases, roads have been developed with little consideration for the needs of the communities they pass through “such as where high-speed roads have been built passing close to schools or residential areas.”

The road safety strategy has been made a condition by donors for granting of any loan in the transport sector. Such a strategy has also been recommended by the world report on road traffic injury prevention, jointly published by the World Health Organization and the World Bank.

Recognising the need for addressing road safety problems, the government in cooperation with the World Bank has established National Road Safety Secretariat (NRSS) in Islamabad.

The terms of reference for the NRSS includes institutional responsibility of road safety, the development of a road safety plan, raising awareness and understanding of road safety problems, road crash data systems, road safety education and training, traffic safety legislation, enforcement of traffic laws, and monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness of road safety activities. The main objective of the NRSS is to perform multi- disciplinary tasks across a broad spectrum of road, vehicle and road-user issues including the preventive and curative measures for reduction in the absolute number of road crashes and their severity.

The development of safe drivers, skilled in defence driving techniques, is an important goal of NRSS Road Safety Programme through drivers training and testing for proper road sense and driving skills. An improvement in vehicle design, occupant protection and vehicle maintenance could also make a significant contribution to crash reduction. The occupants need to be protected by safety features such as seat belts, headrests, air bags, special seats for children safety.