The Ministry of Public Works and Transport (MPWT) has said the country's road
death rate could well be the worst of any in the region, and expects the
situation will get worse.
Figures from the MPWT's land transport
department show that 491 people died on the roads between January and November
2002, compared with 459 in all twelve months of the previous year. There were a
total 3,013 accidents in the recorded 2002 period, causing 4,700
injuries.
The only good news is that the number of deaths has been
increasing at a slower rate than the number of injuries. In 1997 the proportion
of deaths to injuries was 1:5. For 2002 it was 1:10.
The 2002 figures
include deaths recorded in five provinces for December. For that reason, said
the department's deputy director-general, the final toll would likely be higher
once the remaining provinces submitted their data.
Ung Chun Hour added
that the true fatality figure could be higher by as much as 20 percent. He is
set to attend an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) road safety
conference in Bangkok in March and is concerned at the unreliability of his
statistics.
"I don't know how I will report to the group about best
practices, because we have a lot of problems with getting an efficient measure
of road accidents," he said. "We have a lot of law breakers, and the policemen
cannot enforce the traffic law - they have no equipment."
Geoff Gowers,
chief resident engineer of SMEC, an Australian engineering firm, said road
safety would always come second to enforcement. Road rule infringements, he
said, were seldom punished.
"If the road law says you have to go through
a village at 60 kilometers an hour, who's going to enforce it?" he asked. "The
roads are fine - it is just the lack of enforcement."
The ADB's deputy
country head, Anthony Jude, said road accidents last year cost ASEAN nations
around 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), some $11 billion.
"The
government needs to take some responsibility in enforcing road rules - it could
be a good source of revenue," he said.
The government is drafting a
sub-decree to tackle the issue, and it should be ready by mid-year.
