The announcement by the government that some 358 street lights will be installed between Vreed-en-Hoop and Parika in Region 3 is excellent news as road safety is one of the burning concerns of our society, particularly with respect to driving in the nights.

Stressing the importance of international cooperation in the field of road safety, while convinced that responsibility for road safety rests at the local, municipal and national levels, the General Assembly this morning invited the World Health Organisation (WHO), working in close cooperation with the United Nations Regional Commissions, to act as a coordinator on road safety issues within the United Nations system.

“Road safety was no accident”, Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette said prior to action on the text, echoing the theme of the World Health Day on 7 April.  It required commitment at the highest levels of leadership.  “The less we do about it, the more lives will be shattered”, she added, stressing the importance of reminding “ourselves and each other that, working together, we can save lives”.

According to the Ministry of Public Works and Communications Traffic Safety Engineer, Nigel Erskine, bidding for the contract has begun and is expected to last for the next 30 days after which an evaluation committee will select the most suitable bidder.

The number of vehicles has grown tremendously in recent years and with the modern vehicles having brighter lights and the terrible habit of drivers these days unwilling to dip their lights navigating our roadways in the nights is indeed a nightmare where road lighting is absent. This definitely is a dangerous situation which poses a severe threat to life and limb, and indeed many serious and fatal accidents on our roads have taken place of the darkness on our roads and failure of drivers to dip their lights thereby temporarily blinding drivers coming from the opposite direction.

Of course it is impossible to police those inconsiderate drivers who refuse to dip their lights and therefore the only solution to this serious problem is to provide adequate lighting on our roads.

On this note it should be acknowledged that the government has been addressing this problem and has spent billions of dollars to install lights along several roadways in areas from the Russian Embassy to Better Hope (252 lamps), Mahaica-Rosignol Highway (619 lamps), Mahaica and Mahaicony bridges and approaches (132 lamps), Timehri to Republic Park (132 lamps), Ruimveldt Police Outpost to Demerara Harbour Bridge, Demerara Harbour Bridge to Vreed-en-Hoop (460 lamps) and Kitty Pump Station to Seawall Bandstand (48 lamps).

In addition, more than 400 lamps were erected from Better Hope, East Coast Demerara to Golden Grove.

Most recently, a $137M contract was awarded to Cummings Electrical for the installation of lights along the East Bank corridor up to Timehri.

So it is not that the government has not recognised the need for lighting on our roads but because of financial constraints it is doing it in a phased manner.

This problem is afflicting many countries, especially developing ones. According to the UN JAVAD ZARIF, (Iran) Acting President of the General Assembly said that each year, road accidents accounted for more than 1 million deaths and injured or disabled between 20 and 50 million persons.  Such a growing crisis affected all Member States, and it now had its proper place on the international agenda.  Today’s meeting provided the international community with an opportunity to examine the multifaceted issues concerning road safety and to focus on the development of effective strategies to address it.

The statistics were startling, he continued.  The global costs of road accidents and resulting injuries amounted to some $518 billion.  Developing countries accounted for some $65 billion of that amount, which was more than what they received in official development assistance.  The majority of motor vehicles were operated in the developed world, and it might be expected that most fatalities would occur there.  The statistics, however, showed that low- and middle-income countries accounted for about 85 per cent of deaths and a disproportionately high percentage of disability globally.  Around the world, injuries were among the leading causes of death for people aged 15 to 44.  The social costs were incalculable.  The loss of breadwinners and the long-term care for people disabled in road traffic accidents drove many families into poverty, particularly in the developing world.