Young People being Prepared to Initiate Programmes on Road Safety

A two-day meeting, designed to empower young people to initiate youth-friendly programmes on road safety, got underway on (Nov. 8) at the Medallion Hall Hotel in Kingston.
Organized by the Road Safety Unit, the meeting, which takes the form of workshops, fulfills a commitment given at the United Nations (UN) Youth Assembly on Road Safety held in April, to empower youth advocates for road safety.
The aim of the UN Assembly was to encourage nations to form youth coalitions that will lead to initiating programmes are geared towards improving road safety, and increasing knowledge and information dissemination among young people.
Addressing youth ambassadors at the opening of the workshops, Director of the Road Safety Unit, Paul Clemetson said that the sessions are designed to chart a new course that will give a voice to young people, in terms of safety on the roadways.
He said that the gravity of the situation will be made clear throughout the two days and advised the youth ambassadors to be proactive in securing their well-being on the road.
According to Mr. Clemetson, more than 1.2 million people around the world die from road crashes and every minute, over 900 persons are taken to the emergency unit of hospitals all over the world. “The carnage on our roadways is enormous . when we look at the financial cost and the burden that it places on the health sector, then it behoves us as subjects of this planet to do what we can to arrest the carnage,” he stated.
Director of Corporate Planning and Performance Monitoring at the Ministry of Transport and Works, Sean Gray, who spoke on behalf of State Minister, Joseph Hibbert, said that the workshops are a continuation of the process to “save our young people from themselves, from the false notion of invincibility and the tragic risk of early deaths on our roads.”
He commended Jamaica for taking the initiative to form a group that will implement the UN’s Youth Declaration for Road Safety.
The Youth Declaration for Road Safety states that parents and guardians must create a safe environment for young people and teach them and their younger brothers and sisters the rules of the road.
It also states that educational institutions must include road safety in the school curricula from an early age and conduct and publish more research on road traffic injury prevention. The declaration also charges the media to address road traffic deaths and injuries as a global health and development problem that affects millions each year.
Citing the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) 2007 report, Mr. Gray informed that road traffic crashes are the leading cause of death among young people between the ages of 10 and 24 years. Nearly 400,000 young people under the age of 25 are killed in traffic crashes every year, most of whom are from the low and middle income countries. He added that young males are at a very high risk for road traffic fatalities. Based on the PAHO report, every three minutes, a child is killed on the global road network.