TRAFFIC accidents kill 34 Filipinos daily, and are the main cause of death among young people aged between 15 and 19, data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) show.
Since it is committed to help make roads safer, especially to children, SM Prime Holdings Inc. recently hosted various stakeholders organized by Safe Kids Worldwide Philippines (SKWP) to impart lessons on road safety and restore security in the streets.
Coinciding with the UN-led Global Road Safety Week this month, SM Supermalls and SM Cares hosted the SKWP, Safe Kids Worldwide Network, Global Alliance of Nongovernmental Organizations for Road Safety, Motorcycle Development Program Participants Association Inc. and the World Health Organizations (WHO) in launching the SaveLives #SlowDown campaign, which calls on all stakeholders to reduce speed limits on the road to save lives.
Held at the Music Hall of the Mall of Asia in Pasay City, road- safety advocates from both the government and private sectors vowed to raise awareness and implement reforms that will educate the public on the importance of road safety and the need to reduce traffic accidents.
Jocelyn Yambao-Franco, president of SKWP, pointed out the need to slow down on the road as she cited that worldwide, an estimated 1.25 million die and over 50 million are injured on road crashes annually.
By 2020 road-traffic crashes are expected to increase by 80 percent in low- and middle-income countries.
Benjamin Lane, Health Systems team leader of WHO Philippines, said reducingthe speed limit even by just 1 kilometer per hour will save lives.
Jesus de la Fuente, executive director of SKWP, agreed, and said the bulk of fatal road crashes are caused by speeding.
“A great portion of our road-traffic crashes, especially those that are fatal, are caused by speeding and it has already proven that a 5-percent cut in average speed can result in a 30-percent reduction in the number of fatal road-traffic crashes. This is what we hope to achieve in this event,” de la Fuente said.
He said if the government and the public do not introduce effective road-safety interventions, more people will die or get injured in road accidents, and noted that road-traffic crashes have increased in the Philippines for the past several years.
“Government data show transport-related crashes in the country have increased sharply from 15,572 in 2014 to 24,565 in 2016,” he said.
Assistant Transportation Secretary Mark de Leon said the Department of Transportation (DOTr) is set to implement various programs that will make roads safer to everyone.
“We are proposing the installation of speed-limit devices in all our public-utility vehicles, as well as dashboard cameras and CCTVs [closed-circuit television cameras], for the protection of, not only our riding public but pedestrians. [The] DOTr will make sure our roads are safer,” he added.
Local government executives from the cities of Parañaque, Pasay and Quezon have also pledged their commitment to the SaveLives #SlowDown campaign by enacting ordinances in their own cities and barangays to implement speed limits.
In 2011 the WHO launched the Decade of Action for Road Safety prescribing a framework designed to curb the rising number of road-traffic injuries and fatalities in the entire world.
Following the 2011 Framework on Road Safety, the Philippines’s DOTr spearheaded the Philippine Road Safety Action Plan (PRSAP) 2011 to 2020, with the goal of reducing road-traffic crashes by the year 2020.
Royce Cabunag, director of the SM Cares Program on Children and Youth, said “in this fast-paced world, not everything needs to move at the speed of light, and the road is definitely a place where slowing down is vital and lifesaving. SM is a proud partner in this advocacy to protect and save lives, especially that of our children”.
SKWP is a non-governmental organization (NGO) working for the prevention of unintentional injuries to children 14-years-old and below.
It addresses the issues of road traffic crashes, drowning, falls, burns and poisoning.
SKWP is a member of Safe Kids Global Network with more than 30 member- countries and 400 coalitions in US and Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety more than 170 member-NGOs working in road safety from more than 90 countries around the world.