Increasing urban population means more vehicles on the roads and more accidents. In Cambodia motorbikes and three-wheeled vehicles represent 75 percent of the vehicle fleet and are the major contributors to accidents.
Road deaths in Cambodia have almost doubled in the last three years, and it is feared
the problem could soon become an epidemic if no remedial action is taken.
The accident figures, released by the National Police in January, showed that from
the 3,760 reported accidents on Cambodia's roads in 2003, 824 people were killed,
and 6,329 were injured.
Traffic injuries are increasing every year by nearly 30 percent and Ung Chun Hour,
Deputy Director-General of Transport and director of the Land Transport Department
said last year's increase was of particular concern. He described the situation as
"an alarming emergency".
Cambodia now has the highest rate of road and traffic injury of all the ASEAN nations.
(Traffic fatality rates reported in 2002 were: Cambodia 12.08, Vietnam 10.77, Malaysia
5.72, Thailand 5.57, Singapore 2.9, Brunei 1.9. The range for developed countries
was 1.5 to 1.9.)
The problem is becoming an increasing burden on Cambodia's economy. An Asian Development
Bank consultant recently estimated the cost of road traffic accidents to be $66 million
per year and equal to 1.8 percent of the country's GDP.
It is widely acknowledged that statistical data is unreliable and official accident
statistics are under-reported. "The number of road accidents is actually much
more. In some remote provinces people cannot send us road accident data," Chung
Hour said.
Analysts point to recent economic stability to explain the continuing increase. Development
is improving infrastructure, increasing disposable income and causing urban drift.
All these factors translate to more vehicles on the roads and more accidents. The
rapid increase in motorbikes and three-wheeled vehicles is considered a major contributor
to accidents in Southeast Asia. These constitute 75 percent of Cambodia's vehicles.
The Phnom Penh municipal government, in an attempt to ease congestion and accidents,
is moving to exclude from some areas three-wheeled covered motorcycles (tuk-tuks)
and motorcycle-drawn trailers (remorques). The municipality has announced that these
vehicles will be banned from Prampi Makara, Daun Penh, Chamkar Mon and Tuol Kok.
A spokesman said a period of education would precede enforcement by fines.
Bruno Smits, road safety project co-ordinator at Handicap International Belgium (one
of whose goals is accident prevention) said: "Cambodia is at the bottom of the
motorization curve and further exponential growth is expected in the forthcoming
years. Rapid rise in motorization makes traffic become more and more complex and
injury and death are expected to become epidemic unless clear action is taken."
Pamela Messervy, World Health Organisation road safety program management officer,
expressed concern that lack of foresight by the government may restrict improvements
to the problem before it is too late.
"The fact that we cannot categorically say that traffic injuries are a major
health problem at the moment makes it challenging to get a real commitment from the
government," she said. "But traffic injuries will become one of the top
five health concerns in the future if action isn't taken now."
Concerned ministries, organizations and experts met in Phnom Penh in January to address
the issues and create a road safety strategy and action plan. The seminar concluded
with an ambitious plan calling for a coordinated response involving all concerned
Government ministries, NGOs and the private sector.
The plan says all indicators point to deteriorating road safety in Cambodia and large
economic losses and social effects; crashes have a greater adverse effect on the
poor.
The main goals of the action plan are to improve education of all strata of the population,
improve roads, increase traffic police enforcement capability, improve driver training
and testing, increase vehicle safety standards and pass new traffic legislation .
It was considered essential that a new traffic law is passed by the National Assembly
as soon as possible. "The traffic law enacted in1991 is no longer relevant to
the situation," Smits said.
Among other shortcomings, the legislation has no provisions to enforce seat-belt
or helmet wearing and does not place restrictions on blood alcohol concentration.
Penalties for traffic violations under the 1991 legislation are very low and unlikely
to deter infringement. Currently fines range from1500 riel (37c) for minor offences
such as driving on the wrong side of the road to 40,000 riel ($10) for high-level
offences such as driving drunk and causing a fatal road accident.
A revised road and traffic law that was first drafted in 1995 has been stuck in the
National Assembly since the general election in 2003. "When a new assembly forms,
revision of the road and traffic law should be made a priority," Chung Hour
said.
The action plan recognises that the traffic problems are far more complex than can
be resolved by simply addressing the inadequate legislation: a new law cannot be
enforced because police lack resources. Koizumi Yukihiro from the Japan International
Co-operation Agency (JICA), says traffic police often don't know the rules and regulations,
and citizens often do not respect their authority.
It seems that few people know the rules and regulations and even fewer have access
to traffic safety information.
Bruno Smits points to a knowledge gap from the years of unrest and war: "Parents
are unable to train their children in road safety, as they received no education
themselves," he said.
"To address this problem the action plan includes a substantial education component.
Handicap International is administering a 'helmets for schoolchildren' program. The
program not only distributes 1,500 helmets to school children from years 1-6 but
plans to develop a curriculum to deliver road safety education into classrooms."
Pamela Messervy says that although long-term strategies are important, evidence has
shown that the most effective strategy is simply putting helmets on heads [of cyclists
and motorcyclists]. "We know that by putting helmets on heads you can save lives
and by doing this you also raise awareness."
The traffic experts all agree that implementing the action plan will be a significant
challenge. Koizumi Yukihiro is pessimistic: "I think that this action plan could
be very useful but my concern is how to implement the suggestions."
Bruno Smits said: "Current capacities of Cambodian governmental institutions
are far from being able to cope with the situation. In order to be successful, road
safety demands a multi-sector approach with strong government commitment as the key."
According to Chung Hour, success of the plan depends largely on funding. There is
no allocated fund from the National Assembly for traffic accidents and this needs
to be addressed. "The action plan depends on funding; with no funds we cannot
do anything," he said.
It is widely considered that if governments fail to take action, traffic problems
will quickly become a crisis. The World Health Organisation estimates that if nothing
is done about road injuries it will rise to the third biggest cause of premature
deaths by the year 2020. In response, WHO has made road safety the theme of this
year's World Health Day, on April 7.
Dr Alan Ross, ADB-ASEAN Regional Road and Safety advisor, refers to the world's traffic
deaths as "the silent killer". He says the global road toll is comparable
to 2,220 Boeing 747 aircraft full of people crashing every year. "If this was
to actually occur there would be an international outcry but it happens every year
on the roads and no one seems to care."
Motorbike helmets prime focus
of
safety campaign
A 2000 study using data from Phnom Penh emergency services, hospitals, traffic police
and municipal authorities disclosed that 76 percent of accidents involved motorcycles,
85 percent of accidents led to injuries that could be disabling, and 58 percent of
these involved serious head trauma.
Only 9 percent of motorcyclists wore a helmet (the observed wearing rate in August
2003 was about 11 percent).
The same year, Handicap International implemented the 'Motodop Helmet Initiative'
to encourage professional drivers to wear helmets and identification jackets and
carry an extra helmet for their passengers.
In 2002, three sessions of basic training in traffic law were conducted for 213 motodop
drivers from the seven city districts (khann). All participants were given a helmet
and jacket.
