Whatever happened to the PGRSP?

Alarmed by the 2008 rise in automotive crash-related death and injury, the Philippine government in 2009 entered into a national road safety partnership with civil society groups and private companies. It is called the Philippines Global Road Safety Partnership (PGRSP).

Government transport agencies, non-profit associations and private companies in the automotive, telecommunications, energy, transport sectors agreed work together to solve the country’s many and various road safety challenges.

In 2008, official data said the number of reported road accidents rose by 28.3 percent to 14,794—up from 11,532 in 2007.

By the end of June 2009, deaths due to road crashes had reached 624, more by 8.7 percent than the 573 deaths at the same period in 2008.

That trend, the PGRSP activists said in mid 2009, would make that year a terrible one for crashes and deaths if no major campaign against bad driving habits, especially of motorcyclists and bus drivers, were launched.

Large rise in accidents in 2009

The latest data from the Philippine National Police show that the PGRSP’s efforts were not enough against bad drivers.

The total number of road accidents in 2009—20,008—rose by 35.24 percent over 2008. As mentioned above, accident number growth was only 28.3 percent over 2007 in 2008.

Deaths from road crashes in 2009 were about double the deaths in 2008.

The dramatic rise in 2009 road accidents, and deaths, was caused by motorcycle and passenger bus crashes. Motorcycle accidents in 2009 (4,302 of them) were 26.23 percent more in 2009 than in 2008. Passenger-bus accidents (2,119) rose by 46.85 percent over 2008.

More drunk drivers had accidents in 2009 (735), a 257 percent increase over 2008.

Accidents involving motorists using mobile phones while driving (491 accidents) increased by a whooping 700 percent. Only 70 cell phone-using drivers got involved in crashes in 2008.

The PNP wants Congress to pass the pending Road Safety Act. Among its provisions is the prohibition of mobile phone use while driving.

The data show that 9,092 accidents were caused by human error compared to accidents caused mechanical defects (2,706). The most common human error or bad driving acts were bad overtaking, overspeeding, and bad turning.

Economic toll of road accidents

Road accidents exact huge economic and social tolls. The Department of Transport and Communications estimated in 2009 that some P105.3-billion worth of property—about 2.8 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP)—go to waste because of crashes. This estimate is based only on accidents reported to the government and known to the police.

Socially, accidents that cause severe injury and fatalities cause serious suffering and disruptions of family development. The decline in household income when a family member gets killed or crippled causes children to stop their schooling and sick family members to forgo medicine and proper health care.

The GRSP is housed within the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Geneva. It formed a coalition last year with Philippine-based private companies, NGOs to create a new national road safety partnership.

The Philippines Global Road Safety Partnership includes such great names as the Automotive Association Philippines, the Chamber of Automobile Manufacturers of the Phil. Inc., the Ford Group Philippines, the Independent Philippine Petroleum Companies Association, Motorcycle Development Program Participants Association Inc., the Phil. Long Distance Telephone Co., Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp., and Tollway Association of the Philippines and the Truck Manufacturers Association of the Philippines.

PGRSP is a nonprofit organization founded on the basic principles of the Global Road Safety Partnership that brings together government agencies, business entities and civil society to the common task of addressing global and local road safety issues.

PGRSP was to develop multi-sector and multi-component programs that use globally recognized good practice to address key risk factors that can result in serious injury and death.

The key risk factors are lack of helmet use, speeding, non-use of seatbelts, distraction, and drinking and driving.

Obviously, PGRSP has to redouble its efforts to prevent 2010 from outdoing 2009.

UN Decade of Action for Road Safety

Early this month the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 2011 to 2020 the “Decade of Action for Road Safety.”

The aim is to halt the increasing trends in road traffic deaths and injuries worldwide.

“This Decade of Action for Road Safety is long overdue,” WHO Assistant Director General Dr Ala Alwan said. “It will help us increase action to address what will otherwise become the fifth leading cause of death by 2030.”

Road traffic injuries are a major public health problem killing nearly 1.3 million people each year and injuring as many as 50 million. They are the leading cause of death for children and young people aged 5 to 29 years.

Almost half of the world’s road traffic fatalities are among pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists and more than 90 percent occur in developing countries.

While road traffic death rates in many high-income countries have stabilized or declined in recent decades, research suggests road deaths are increasing in most regions of the world and that if trends continue unabated, they will rise to an estimated 2.4 million deaths a year by 2030.

The UN and WHO hope that from 2011 to 2020 member states of the UN and WHO, with the support of the international community, will commit to actions in areas such as developing and enforcing legislation on key risk factors including limiting speed, reducing drink-driving, and increasing the use of seatbelts, child restraints and motorcycle helmets.

There must also be serious efforts to improve emergency trauma care, upgrade road and vehicle safety standards, promote road safety education and enhance road safety management in general.

In the Philippines, the PGRSP must renew the commitments they made in 2009 and work really hard to reduce road accidents. –Manila Times