IDB focuses on reducing road deaths

The Caribbean has been given a failing grade for not meeting the target of reducing road fatalities by about half over the past decade.

Manager of Infrastructure and Energy Sector at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) José Agustín Aguerre said a new focus on road safety was therefore required to change the current situation.

“To be honest, in our region we did not achieve the target of reducing by one half, the deaths on the road. We only managed to reduce the speed at which they grew,” said Aguerre.

“In 2018, we still had over 100,000 deaths by road traffic, which is clearly an unacceptable figure for the region,” he said.

It is estimated that some 109,000 people die from road traffic accidents on average annually in Latin America and the Caribbean. It is not known how many people are seriously injured in road accidents annually in the region.

Aguerre said the region had made some progress over the past decade in raising awareness, building institutions, gathering data and drafting national plans.

However, he said the results were still lagging in high income countries.

“They managed to reverse the trend and have declining road injuries and fatalities. There is therefore no room for us for another lost decade in the region, and we need to carefully evaluate what it was we did not do so well,” he said.

Aguerre was addressing one in a series of online forums put on by the IDB last Thursday. The theme was Road Safety in the Caribbean: A Safe System Approach to Saving Lives.

As part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a Decade of Action for Road Safety was declared in 2010 for countries to stabilize and then reduce the level of road traffic deaths around the world.

According to this UN declaration, SDG 3.6, countries should halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents by December 2020.

SDG 11.2 requires that by 2030, countries provide access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems for all, improving road safety, notably by expanding public transport, with special attention to the needs of those in vulnerable situations – women, children, persons with disabilities and older persons.

In 2011 Barbados recorded 19 road fatalities and 28 the following year. By the year 2014 there were 14 road deaths recorded and the following year the number jumped to 22.

However, after a low of 10 road deaths in 2016, Barbados witnessed its highest number of road fatalities for the decade at 28 in the year 2017.

There was a slight decrease the following year to 25, and in 2019 the number of road deaths significantly declined to 11, before rising again to 14 in 2020.

So far for 2021, the island has recorded four road fatalities.

Aguerre did not single out any of the countries in the Caribbean and Latin America, but told the online gathering that there were some things that needed improvement.

However, he was very critical of the IDB approach to road safety over the past decade, saying the Washington-Based development financing institution had a strategy that was “all over the place” and it was trying to do “too many things and too many events with photo opportunities”.

“Secondly, we had a tendency at the bank to think too much in terms of growth and specific loan programmes. It is important to understand that in road safety the most urgent actions will not necessarily need massive investment of resources but commitment of political capital to adopt outstanding reforms and the willingness and courage of public officials and civil society to implement them,” he explained.

“Thirdly, I think we at the bank focus our efforts excessively on the role of infrastructure in road safety and paid less attention to the vehicles and humans in the equation,” he said .

He reported that for the next decade the IDB wanted to focus on three main areas relating to public policy. This would include the adoption of international vehicle safety standards and mandatory labeling with safety writing information to improve information to the public so there could be consequences.

“The second goal in the public policy objective is to have mandatory insurance policies. Believe it or not, in some countries it is not mandatory to have insurance,” he said, adding that insurance policies and its costs should be used to reward safer driving.

“Our third priority is to promote sustainable urban mobility. Here we are working on three big topics – fostering actions to promote and facilitate public transport and to promote active mobility of walking and cycling. Second is to have nation-wide speed management programmes mostly in urban areas, and thirdly, safe routes to school strategies,” explained Aguerre.

“We all need to step up and undertake ambitious and bold actions not only to meet the global road safety targets of reducing road traffic deaths by 50 per cent in 2030, but more importantly, to get on track to achieve zero deaths,” he said, adding that the IDB remained committed to help.

(marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb)