Brian is back with his monthly column giving his unique perspective on youth and road safety issues in Africa. Often, our perspective of African issues is shrouded by the media or stereotypes. Brian gives us a first hand opinion from the ground.

“You can’t rely on it”, you said. Why is public transport in developing countries such a pain in (deleted by editor). Forget the Human Development Index and all these multi-colored measures of development, gosh, there should only 3 indicators of development for any country in the world. 1) the ratio of number of trees to country population, 2) the quality of music and food, 3) the ratio of people using public to private means of transport.

Today, Uganda woke up to news of yet another fatal road traffic crash that cleared lives of 4 family members aged between 28-32 as they sped across the Northern Highway. These poor souls have just started to live for when you think about how much their parents/country invested in them and now they are no more because of something that could have been avoided; it’s disheartening. Last month, I was reading about how Nigeria loses two persons every four hours because of road crashes. Okay, it does sound like a rap song, but holy virgin! These humans are dying of avoidable risks. This shouldn’t be normal. Most die in private cars, and we all know the long stories behind these cars and the novice drivers:-from buying driving permits to road retired car conditions. In Tanzania, just last month, an over-loaded ferry capsized on lake Victoria where Death toll rose to 209. Yes, just like that, we lost probably a series of potential Nobel Prize Winners.

Yes, we could all buy private cars:-yeah, but at what cost? The road sizes seem to be stunted. With the population increasing between 2.1-3.6% per annum, how many cars shall we have on the road, and what about the curse we’ve already slapped onto our environment? I just read about THAT 1.5 degree Report where Temperatures are likely to rise by 1.5 degrees Celsius between 2030 and 2052 if global warming continues at its current pace and if the world fails to take rapid and unprecedented measures to stem the increase. Yo, we might not have any human life soon!

Anyway, like most of you, I spent 9 hours on a Public Transport Bus from Soroti (a local town) to Entebbe Airport to participate in Research Symposium on Enhancing Capacity for Maritime and infrastructure disaster response and management in Nairobi. I couldn’t miss this event for anything in the world as it was an opportunity for me to attend a PhD Peer Review Event as well as meeting my supervisor. Like many uptown public buses, there’re chicken, humans and other property. They seem not to have a quotidien, and stop to do whatever business every 5km. We have no provision for Persons with Special Needs, People Living with Disabilities and the seats…Oh dear, if you belong to the class of the “Senior Citizens” or you’re pregnant, good luck finding a doctor upon arrival.

Listen, this distance is 346km, meaning it would take about 6 hours 39 mins! As we got closer to the city,the inevitable happened: A long mean-looking obese epidemic of traffic jam stood across us. There was one way to get out of it. Spend more money on a commercial motorbike which saw us maneuver through the traffic like in one of those block-buster movies-and I mean, we broke a few rules: From riding on pavements to ignoring a red light (once). I’m neither Jamaican, Kenyan nor Ethiopian, but I splinted 800m in probably a record time to  make it as the last passenger to check-in.

Looking back, anything could have happened during that motorbike- plane-chase! The only comfort was using a Safe Boda Bike Company that could get me a helmet. Our governments need to do everything legal to make Public Transport sexy!

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From participating in leadership opportunities in high school to establishing his own consulting firm where he works with national nonprofit organizations in advocacy, Jacob Smith remains passionate about promoting safety issues and youth leadership.

“I am currently right now with various organizations. Most of them are youth participating organizations,” Smith stated. “Back in high school at Whitehouse High School, I was involved with FCCLA, which is Family, Career and Community Leaders of America. I went from serving as a national officer on the board of directors and now they are actually one of my clients. The organization is pretty strong in a lot of subjects, but ultimately it prepares students to make an impact in their families, careers and communities.”

Though he always considered going into a field of advocacy, he couldn’t imagine how large a part he would play or on how grand a stage he would perform.

“My biggest thing is mobilizing young people beyond safety,” Smith affirmed. “Safety is my passion and specifically traffic safety or road safety. Back in high school I was part of a few different organizations I still stay connected with but I never thought I would be on this scale in really being instrumental in mobilizing communities.”

Many might remember Smith as the high school student who, along with a teacher and another student, was hospitalized following a vehicle accident while returning from an FCCLA event in Corpus Christi in April 2014. It was his junior year.

As a result of the traumatic brain injury he suffered in that accident, Smith cannot drive himself. Yet, as he once wrote and still believes, we all have a choice “to get bitter or get better.”

Four pairs of engineering students from Italy, Lithuania and Poland have been recognised for projects to redesign and upgrade high-risk road infrastructure in the cities of Milan, Naples, Vilnius and Kraków.

The students’ projects were delivered as part of YEARS (Young Europeans Acting for Road Safety), a Europe-wide project on the road safety of young people managed by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) and the UK’s Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) with the support of the European Commission, the German Road Safety Council (DVR) and VIAS Institute in Belgium. The awards ceremony is took place in Brussels on 12th September 18.

Vincenzo Viro and Giuseppe Silvestro from the Technical University of Naples chose a dangerous intersection in Afragola, a suburb of Naples for their road safety project.  Following research on crash statistics and a road safety inspection, the team identified the road’s design, lack of visibility, speeding by drivers, a lack of signalisation and the safety of vulnerable road users as the key issues to improve.

Following meetings with local authorities and after obtaining funding from the Safer Roads Foundation, an NGO, works were completed at the end of last year. The engineering team oversaw the creation of a mini roundabout, reconstruction of a traffic island, new pedestrian crossings and signalisation as well as improvement of the pavement.

Aivaras Paškauskas and Tomas Vičkačka from the University of Vilnius selected a high-risk site: a pedestrian crossing in the city of Molėtai, around 60km from Vilnius. The location was chosen in cooperation with local authorities and residents. The crossing is located close to a bus station, a residential area, two schools and a park and is part of a main walking route. Despite the key location, the crossing offered poor visibility in darkness and bad weather with lights turned off from 22:00 at night.  The surrounding buildings and other objects also made pedestrians hard to see. The crossing is also used by children going to/from school and often not paying attention to the traffic.

The innovative solution developed by the team involves warning lights that are activated only when pedestrians and cyclists are detected at the crossing.  The lights are also solar powered, removing the need for connection to the electricity network. The students developed positive relations with the local authority during the development of the technical solution and other sites are now being identified for upgrades as a direct result of the project.

Sylwia Pogodzinska and Dawid Dudek at the University of Kraków also targeted a pedestrian crossing located in Krakow for an upgrade through the implementation of a refuge island in order to improve crosswalk visibility, decrease vehicles speed, improve the visibility of pedestrians with an easy-to-implement, low cost but effective treatment.

The proposal was based on literature reviews and crash data collection.The students also used social media, online surveys and the university network to promote their project and the road safety of young people.

About ETSC
ETSC is a Brussels-based independent non-profit making organisation dedicated to reducing the numbers of deaths and injuries in transport in Europe. Founded in 1993, ETSC provides an impartial source of expert advice on transport safety matters to the European Commission, the European Parliament, and Member States. It maintains its independence through funding from a variety of sources including membership subscriptions, the European Commission, and public and private sector support for various activities.

READ MORE ABOUT YEARS