Our regular monthly columnist Brian Bilal Mwebaze is back with another column on road safety opinions and happenings in Africa. This month, Brian briefly addresses the importance of involving the police in your road safety actions, afterall, road safety laws are only as good as their enforcement.
April! That’s right! And what a whole load of road safety events you have come along with! If you didn’t know #ICPD47 is in high definition, as the introductory Statement on the Reports of the Secretary-General on the Operational Review of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development Beyond 2014 mention youth and road safety.
The reports conclude with the following seven paths, based on the collected findings of the review for the further implementation of ICPD Beyond 2014 to ensure a sustainable world, which cant exist without safe mobility. We cant forget the #RoadSafetyThursday Tweet-up sessions! Join us every Thursday on twitter!
Back to the police…
Yeah, they’ve been known under a number of trademark and street names:- cops, policia, police, polisi-mention it. Are they important for your road safety campaign? Do you like them? Or Do you run into hiding upon sight of them?
See, we know that the traffic safety situation and existence of different entropy reasons in our national traffic safety system inevitably puts a special importance on traffic policing, control and enforcement. Can you imagine what hell of a mess would be on the roads if there was no one to act like a class monitor?
We all know one classical rule of road safety planning: Road safety cannot be the responsibility of government alone. The commercial sector, service organizations and non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) play an important role in increasing road safety awareness at grass roots level. Effective traffic enforcement is one the most important requirements for road safety. We can have the best Rules of the Road, but if these are not enforced effectively, we will continue to have an increase in fatal crashes on our roads.
Read about the WHO’s report on how countries can tackle law and enforcement hurdles.
Of course, laws often exist without enforcement and really, what’s the point in that? In one respect, enacting road safety law does show the country’s stance on a topic in that a democratic decsion is reached by the people and representatives to tackle the road safety issue at hand, however, without enforcment and education on th law in question, many key risk factors are still perperated. We need to advocate on all levels of the road safety system!
Click here to see the road safety system ‘Haddon Matrix’ in more detail.
If you’d like to know how your local organization can strengthen and realize outputs in law enforcement, Email: k.johnson@fundforglobalhealth.org http://fundforglobalhealth.org/ Don’t say I didn’t tell ya!! Listen, this isn’t an April fool’s day joke! 😉 #STAYSAFE
Don’t forget #RoadSafetyThursday! Read more about it here.