With economic growth and increased standards of living, the world’s roads are rapidly becoming busier and more congested and therefore road accidents and injuries and fatalities are on the upsurge, making the situation one of global concern.
Approximately 1.3 million people die each year on the world’s roads, and between 20 and 50 million sustain non-fatal injuries.
The Global status report on road safety is the first broad assessment of the road safety situation in 178 countries, using data drawn from a standardised survey. The results show that road traffic injuries remain an important public health problem, particularly for low-income and middle-income countries.
Pedestrians, cyclists and motor cyclists make up almost half of those killed on the roads, highlighting the need for these road users to be given more attention in road safety programmes.
The results suggest that in many countries road safety laws need to be made more comprehensive while enforcement should be strengthened. The Global status report on road safety results clearly show that significantly more action is needed to make the world’s roads safer. (Source: United Nations)
On  May 11, 2011, the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 was launched in more than 100 countries, with one goal: to prevent five million road traffic deaths globally by 2020.
Moving from the Global Plan for the Decade to national action, many countries have taken measures towards improving road safety, either by developing national plans for the Decade (e.g. Australia, Mexico, the Philippines); introducing new laws (e.g. Chile, China, France, Honduras); or increasing enforcement of existing legislation (e.g. Brazil, Cambodia, the Russian Federation), among other concrete action.
The recent UN General Assembly resolution on global road safety sponsored by more than 80 countries gives further impetus to the Decade by calling on countries to implement road safety activities in each of the five pillars of the Global Plan.
Road accidents do not only cause physical loss and injuries, but in many cases are traumatic and leave indelible emotional and psychological scars for survivors and relatives and those close to victims. This, of course, is immeasurable and is even more reason for taking action to both minimise accidents and reduce serious accidents.
In our country road safety, like the rest of the world, has become a very serious concern as we have one of the highest rates of road accidents on a per capita basis. As a result, there have been calls for stiffer penalties for traffic offences; more police patrols; road networks expansion,  etc. All of these are  imperative and are not debatable.
However, one of the most important issues, if not the most important, is the instilling and inculcation in the young minds, road safety awareness and consciousness so that our young road users will develop a more responsible attitude toward the use of the road and it is more than likely that this attitude would carry over to adulthood and in turn they will instil in their children a responsible attitude to driving, riding or walking on the roads.
On this note, it was heartening to hear our Traffic Chief Senior Superintendent Brian Joseph at a meeting of the Guyana National Road Safety Council (GNRSC) on Thursday extolling this view.
“We need to implant the basics of road safety in young minds and promote an improvement in behaviour on our roadways, if we are to avoid accidents and save lives. This is the principal expectation of the Traffic Department, the Traffic Chief exhorted.
So now that it is recognised that we need to change attitudes from a young age, the next logical step is work tangibly and persistently towards achieving this objective. One of the best ways to do this is to make it compulsory for traffic education to become a compulsory part of the curricula of nursery, primary and secondary schools.
Many years ago there used to be active road safety patrol groups in schools, but for some mysterious reason they are currently hardly in existence.
These groups need to be resuscitated and also become compulsory for all schools.
In addition, the Traffic department should hold frequent road safety lectures in schools and at the community level in a systematic, organised and sustainable manner. Lives are too precious to be snuffed out on our roads by preventable accidents.
The carnage must stop!