Road deaths becoming costly to countries – IDB

With Guyana recording 40 road deaths already for the year, the Inter American Development Bank (IDB) announced that it will work with a variety of stakeholders to mobilise resources and carry out measures required to cut numbers of deaths from accidents in the region by 50 per cent.

On Wednesday, May 11th, stakeholders here launched the ‘Decade of Action for Road Safety’, aimed at saving 10 million lives globally. Meanwhile, the bank said the economic cost of these road accidents and injuries is estimated at between one per cent and three per cent of the countries’ gross domestic product. These costs include health insurance, pensions, logistics, and lost productivity, among others. The bank is working closely with governments to design and implement plans and strategies for road safety. It is also participating with other multilateral development banks to join forces and mobilise resources and establish partnerships with private entities.

“In addition to resources, a joint effort that involves not only governments, multilateral banks, and traditional donors, but also the private sector, is required to achieve the goal of a 50 per cent reduction in victims of road accidents,” IDB Executive Vice President Julie Katzman said.

“We must invest in road safety solutions not only to reduce the terrible human cost of this tragedy, but also because it is cost effective,” she said.

Katzman and IDB Executive Director for Mexico, Cecilia Ramos, on May 11, participated in road safety events in Mexico City under the auspices of the health and transport minister.

The IDB said it is promoting a more comprehensive and multi-sectoral approach for addressing road safety problems in the region through links among the transport, health, education, and finance sectors, Ramos said during the launch event.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, traffic accidents claimed the lives of 100,000 people in 2010. If no action is taken, the region will have the highest rate of traffic fatalities by 2020: 17 to 31 deaths per 100,000 of population, which is nearly four times the rate in developed countries, the bank said. Unlike in most developed countries, about half of the people in Latin America who die in road accidents are not the drivers, but rather pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists, who are usually known as vulnerable road users. The bank said its first regional road safety project is being carried out on a 3,200km highway in the Pacific corridor between Mexico and Panama. In the project’s first stage, an audit of the road’s condition was performed. The results will be presented to transport and health authorities participating in Road Safety Week in Mexico.

Given the impact of accidents on the younger population, the IDB, together with Sesame Street and the International Automobile Foundation (FIA), launched an awareness campaign on road safety for children and parents, on May 13. It consisted of TV spots that will air in several countries in the region. This is in addition to the campaign that the IDB is carrying out with MTV to encourage youth to be responsible road users.

Also, with FIA, the IDB has developed the New Car Assessment Programme (Latin NCAP), which evaluates the safety of the most popular cars sold in Latin America to ensure they meet the same standards for vehicles sold in the developed countries. In Haiti, where the IDB is the main donor in the transport sector, a road safety campaign will be launched to raise awareness about the risk of accidents. A US$3 million grant will be used to improve signage on key sections of Haiti’s principal highway. The IDB is preparing a training program on road safety for public authorities with a donation from the Republic of Korea, based on best practices from Korea and Asia. Last year, the bank said, it approved about US$1.3 billion in funding for transportation projects and urban transportation. Between five per cent and seven per cent of those resources were allocated to road safety. Safety is a key element in all IDB investments, which aim to strengthen the capacity of borrowing countries to manage their transport systems and improve the design of highway infrastructure to prevent accidents.