Georgetown: The Guyana National Road Safety Council (GNRSC) in collaboration with the Guyana Police Force (GPF) will be conducting programmes throughout the 10 administrative regions, educating persons on road safety for International Road Safety Week 2013.
These programmes will target primarily schools and adult institutions and focus on the major contributing factors to roads accidents such as speeding, drunkenness and inattentiveness, and the GNRSC with the assistance of the GPF has been working on implementing measures and penalties for such road users. This has resulted in a great reduction over the past year.
However, much more work needs to be done to see a 50 per cent reduction by 2020, according to the United Nations (UN) action challenged plan to all countries.
According to GNRSC Coordinator Romona Doorgen, this year’s road safety plans will be focused on individuals and the roles they play in keeping with road safety.
“Road safety is everybody’s business, over the years, the global reports showed that pedestrians were the major road fatalities; however, in Guyana motorists are the ones who are the victims in road accidents,” said Doorgen.
She noted that during International Road Safety Week, there will be a handing over of equipment to the school safety patrols, lectures in schools and activities across the country. She emphasised that roads safety education is important, especially in the schools because children can also influence their parents to adhere to those rules. She stated that, for last year, motorcyclists were the leading victims of road fatalities.
She urged all road users to adhere to the rules and regulations because – one death is one too many. This year, the Guyana Police Force (GPF) will be focusing heavily on enforcement exercises, particularly for persons in the habit of speeding, driving under the influence of alcohol and pedestrians’ texting and walking on the roadways and breaching the traffic lights.
The GNRSC is urging all road users to always practice the five Cs of road safety: Care, Caution, Courtesy, Consideration and Commonsense when using the road ways. It was noted that there will be a continue plea to all road users to exercise care, stating that every death on the roads is unwanted. In 2012, motorcyclists were the leading victims of road fatalities, followed by pedestrians and the GNRSC would like to lower the deaths by 50 per cent, in the United Nations (UN) Decade of Action in 2020.
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