Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Road accidents need not happen
By Henrylito D. Tacio
Health 101
IT WAS October and Robert's parents were already contemplating on what to wear during their only son's graduation by March. But tragedy came before that event took place. The examination was just over and Robert was riding a motorcycle back to campus when a car that had crossed over struck him head-on into his lane.
The thirty-something driver who hit him was drunk. Robert was left a double amputee. He lost his left arm at the shoulder, and his left leg above the knee. That he even survived the accident was a miracle in itself. He also punctured his lung and suffered multiple fractures of the skull, jaw, vertebrae and chest.
He had received twenty-four units of blood and had been in a coma for almost a month. Robert was indeed lucky. He is still alive. A lot of people have died because of vehicular accidents. Hollywood actor James Dean, who was immortalized in such films as Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, died in a car crash.
Movie starlet Halina Perez also died when the car she was riding in collided with a trailer on a highway in Del Gallego, Camarines Sur a couple of years ago. In 2002, road crashes killed 1.18 million people and injured about 20 to 50 million more, according to the Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO). At least five million people were disabled for life.
"By the year 2020, if current trends continue, the annual numbers of deaths and disabilities from road traffic injuries will have risen by more than 60 percent to number three (from number 9 in 1990) on WHO's list of leading contributors to the global burden of disease and injury," says the United Nations health agency in a report.
Pedestrians and riders of bicycles, motorcycles and mopeds are the people most likely to be injured in crashes. "Vulnerable road users" are how road safety experts call them. A study conducted by the European Road Safety Council showed that for each kilometer traveled on a road, a person on a bicycle is eight times more likely to be killed than a person in a car, a person on foot is nine times more likely to be killed, and a person on a motorcycle is twenty times more likely to be killed.
Oftentimes, most of the victims are males. "As children, males are more likely to play on busy roads and to run or ride bicycles out into roads without stopping to check for traffic," the WHO report states.
"In addition to being more likely to own and drive motor vehicles, adult males are more likely than adult females to drive while under the influence of alcohol and to speed or engage in other reckless behavior."
In 2002, the global rate of death from road traffic injuries was 19 per 100,000 people. The rate was 27.6 per 100,000 males and 10.4 per 100,000 females. Males were almost three times as likely as females to be killed in a road traffic collision. Globally, adults from age 15 to 44 years account for more than 50 percent of all road traffic deaths; roughly three out of four of those killed are male.
Older people, too, are vulnerable victims. "Older people may be less alert and agile than others, and therefore more prone to becoming involved in road crashes," the WHO report says. "They are less resilient, so when they are involved, older persons are more likely to die or to become seriously disabled."
What about children, especially those born to poor parents? Every year, more than 180,000 children under fifteen years of age are killed in road crashes and hundreds of thousands are disabled for life. In 2002, of all children killed, 96 percent were from low-income and middle-income countries.
In the Philippines, at least 263 Filipino children aged 14 years old and below are being killed or injured in road crashes everyday, according to Safe Kids Philippines (SKP), a non-government organization that promotes child safety in the country.
"In all countries, children in poor urban neighborhoods are at especially great risk," the WHO report says. "Whether on foot or bicycle, they use roads as their playgrounds, because they have few other choices. They are smaller and less visible than adult, so they are frequently hit by motor vehicles."
Those actually killed and disabled are the primary victims, but certainly not the only victims of road traffic injuries. Each person killed or disabled has a network of relatives, friends, neighbors, employers, colleagues, teachers or classmates.
Globally, it is estimated that there are now roughly 100 million families coping with the deaths or disabilities of family members who were injured in a road traffic collision, recently or in the past.
"They are coping with grief for the dead and care for the disabled," the report says. "Often, they are also living with reduced incomes, increased expenses and the burden of dealing with police, courts, insurers, medical systems and other bureaucracies."
"Too often, road safety is treated as a transportation issue, not a public health issue, and road traffic injuries are called accidents, though most could be prevented," deplores Dr. Lee Jong-wook, the WHO director-general. "As a result, many countries put far less effort into understanding and preventing road traffic injuries than they do into understanding and preventing diseases that do less harm."
According to conservative estimates, the annual costs of road traffic injuries amount to approximately US$520 billion.
For comments, write me at tasyo2002@yahoo.com
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