DAVAO CITY, Philippines—At least 23 Filipinos including four children die every day due to road accidents in the Philippines, a road safety advocacy group said in a press statement on Monday.
Lawyer Antonio Salvador of the Initiatives for Dialogue and Empowerment through Alternative Legal Services, Inc. (IDEALS) said that road accidents remain to be a “child-killer” in the country which could be prevented if motorists would learn to slow down.
Road crashes up by 27 percent
The recent data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that the number of registered yearly deaths caused by transport-related crashes in the Philippines increased by 27 percent to 8,636 in 2014 from 6,806 in 2006.
The same data show that during this nine-year period, a total of 70,541 Filipinos died due to road crashes, or 7,838 yearly or an average of 23 fatalities daily.
Of the total road deaths from 2006 to 2014, 17 percent or 12,009 were youngsters from less than one year old to 19 years old. This meant that on the average, 1,334 yearly or about four youngsters die daily from transport-related crashes.
Teens aged 15 to 19 most vulnerable to crashes
Of the age brackets among youngsters, the 15 to 19 age group recorded the most number of deaths with a total of 6,409 fatalities from 2006 to 2014 or a yearly average of 712 deaths per year.
The total number of deaths within the 15-19 age bracket is 53 percent of the total deaths of 12,009 among youngsters less than one-year-old to 19 years old.
Salvador said that developing countries such as the Philippines should be able to build its capacities to prevent road accidents and provide financial and technical support as indicated in the April 2014 UN General Assembly resolution that aims to improve global road safety.
IDEALS, according to Salvador, is asking Congress to pass a legislation requiring the mandatory use of child restraint systems in the country.
He said that while global institutions such as the United Nations and the World Health Organization had been campaigning for road safety for over a decade, the problem persists and requires more effort to sustain its campaign.
“There are many ways by which precious life is taken from us and our loved ones, such as through disease, poverty, and war. Let’s not include road crashes. We can save many lives by simply slowing down,” Salvador said.
IDEALS, a non-government organizations that advocates road safety, particularly for children, issued this statement on Monday in time for the Fourth UN Global Road Safety Week from May 8 to 14, 2017. (davaotoday.com)
