The number of road traffic fatalities in Cambodia dipped during the first six months of this year compared with the same time in 2015, according to data from the Ministry of Interior.
Run Roth Veasna, director of the ministry’s department of traffic and order police, confirmed that during the first half of this year, 919 people died in road accidents – a drop of about 100 deaths from last year.
Road accidents also resulted in 3,909 serious injuries, Roth Veasna said, a decrease of 451. “It’s a very good sign of the Traffic Law’s enforcement during the first six months,” he said. “But we hope to further decrease the rates.”
Khieu Sopheak, spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, said an average of five people used to die each day in Cambodia due to car crashes.
The figure has been decreasing to an average of three or four per day. “We’ve saved nearly one life a day,” he said.
During the first six months of this year, there was only one day, in January, when no one died in a car crash, Sopheak said.
Ear Chariya, executive director at the Safety Road Institute, said the numbers were a positive sign for the country, but the law must be enforced “effectively and consistently”.
