Road Safety During The Fesivities
By Rosli Abidin Yahya

Bandar Seri Begawan - To ensure road safety, Royal Brunei Police are checking the road-worthiness of vehicles and reduce road accidents especially during the coming Aidilfitri festivities.

Accidents peak around the Aidilfitri period as people criss-cross the country to visit families and friends, exchange greetings and attend open-house events.

Brunei Darussalam has built a web of roads to cope with an increasing number of vehicles. Unfortunately, accidents with fatalities seem to be a norm that cannot be avoided unless all motorists drive carefully and at reasonable speeds all the time.

Pedestrians also contribute to road accidents.

"The solution to road accidents is simple. It is road safety," said a member of the public concerned with fatal road accidents.

"Accidents happen and cannot be avoided. But road fatalities can be avoided."

The Asian Development Bank is helping all 10 Association of Southeast Asian (Asean) countries to draft a fiveyear Regional Road Safety Strategy and Action Plan as part of the ADB-Asean Regional Road Safety Programme.

The regional strategy and action plan was developed after a regional workshop at ADB with the Asean countries and modelled after successful road safety action plans from the around the world.

According to a recent ADB study, the cost of accidents is equivalent to 2.6 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).

The study covers Asean countries consisting of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Globally, road crashes resulted in one million deaths and more than 23 million injuries annually. Around 85 per cent of these deaths occurred in developing countries.

"If Southeast Asian nations don't start taking road safety seriously, there will be 385,000 road deaths and 24 million injuries in the next five years, incurring more than $88 billion in economic losses," the ADB said.

"If each of those injured or, killed has, say, five family members or dependents that rely upon his or her earnings, there could be 25 million persons in the region being directly affected or suffering economic hardship as a result of road crashes."

The Asia Pacific region contributes 44 per cent of global road deaths, although it has only around 14 per cent of the world's motorised vehicle fleet.

The economic development of the Asean countries, has spurred rapid growth in the level of motorisation and has resulted in a significant worsening of the road safety situation across the region.

Motorcycles, involved in a high proportion of Asia's road accidents, now constitute a large proportion of the vehicle fleet in several countries, ranging from just three percent in Brunei Darussalam to 80 per cent in Lao PDR and 94 per cent in Vietnam.

The proportion may be higher in some of the countries due to under-registration of vehicles. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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