“EVERY year the lives of approximately 1.3 million people are cut short as a result of a road traffic crash. Between 20 and 50 million more people suffer non-fatal injuries, with many incurring a disability as a result of their injury,” according to a June 2022 post on the World Health Organization (WHO)’s website.

The global health authority confirmed 90 per cent of recorded traffic deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries where it is a leading cause of death for children and young adults between five – 29 years. Guyana has recorded marked success grappling with the scourge that has caused much emotional, and in some cases financial, anguish among families of the victims. Only in March, this newspaper reported statistics from the Guyana Police Force (GPF) that the country saw a 17 per cent decrease in fatal road accidents for January to March 2022, when compared to the same period in 2021.

Also in that report was a note that in 2021, the traffic department recorded the least number of fatal accidents for the past decade, 2011 to 2021. “There was a total of 87 fatal accidents, resulting in 99 deaths, three of which were children… fatal accident figures exceeded 100 per year from 2015 to 2021, with 2017 being the year with the least number –100 accidents with 115 deaths, including five children,” noted the March 2022 figures published by this newspaper.

In an awarding-winning 2016 report titled “Costly crashes – deaths, injuries estimated at $4.7B as at October 16” written by now Editor-in-Chief, Tajeram Mohabir, this publication recognised much of what the WHO reported in June 2022. This reflects, suggestively, that much of the dynamics then still obtains now.

“[A]ccidents are a strain on families, and are a heavy public health burden on the State… [as] the majority of victims are from low-income families, who have no option than to seek treatment at the Georgetown Public Hospital or at a public hospital nearest to them,” the 2016 PAHO Media Award-winning article said, adding that treatment at private hospitals is expensive albeit difficult to collectively quantify. On the public health side, however, it was recognised then that “the amount spent at the Georgetown Public Hospital alone in this regard is about $100M.”

The 2016 report focused, interestingly, on the macro-level cost of road accidents, while also giving space to the effects felt at community, family and individual levels. The estimated cost of death per accident was reported as US$60,000 for Guyana in 2004. “In 2004, Dr. Gowkaran Budhu, in a Road Safety Study for the Ministry of Public Works and Communication, put the estimated cost of death per accident at US$60,000 and injuries at US$7500.

“He arrived at these estimates taking into consideration medical costs for injuries, emergency service costs, vocational rehabilitation costs, market productivity costs, household productivity costs, insurance administrative costs, workplace costs, legal court costs, premature funeral costs, travel delay costs, and property damage costs,” the report said. By 2016, 12 years after the initial study, a senior engineer working in the public sector confirmed that the figure had not changed much, instead recognising that the estimated cost for death climbed significantly.

“He pointed out that using the cost-determinant factors identified in Dr. Budhu’s study, the current estimates being used for Guyana and other countries in the region have been put at US$200,000. From this sum, using a conversion rate of US$1 = GY$205, times US$200,000 times 105, the estimated cost of death by accident as at October 16 this year (2016) amounts to $4.3B.

“The estimated cost of severe injuries is put at $425.8M using this method of calculation, and when added to the estimated cost for deaths by accident, the estimated losses, not taking into consideration minor accidents, top $4.7B,” the 2016 report further recorded while comparatively noting that this large figure represented more money than the $3.6 billion the previous government had then allocated to be spent collectively on health facilities and tackling communicable and noncommunicable diseases.

The Dr Irfaan Ali-led administration is certainly not deaf to the cries of the nation for better roads and safer roads. Roadways are being created and enhanced as part of government’s vision for a transformed Guyana, but that vision of transformation also, as the President has noted, includes safer roads. In March, the President signalled that as part of ‘smart policing’ systems, a digital platform for ticketing will be introduced targeting those who breach road laws.

It will not, by all appearances, be limited to vehicular road users alone based on the language of the report. The Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) was named to be engaged for a new system to be incorporated into Guyana’s major highways. “On all our new highways, we are going to incorporate this feature where we can move towards digital ticketing and recognition in terms of speeding, in terms of seatbelt violations and so on; and that system must be automatically linked to the suspension of licence[s] and so on,” President Ali stated.

With $2.5 billion budgeted in 2022 for the expansion of the Safe City Programme beyond the boundaries of the capital, Georgetown, CCTV cameras will be used to monitor road usage across the country, which will feed directly to Regional Command Centres. In a Guyana where the health and safety of every citizen is seen as central to the wellbeing and productivity of the nation, the loss of life through road carnage must be addressed through direct policy and institutional interventions as well as working to dismantle road abuse cultures. That change is coming.