The five key risk factors for mobility and road safety

Santo Domingo—Countries should focus on maintaining the best practices that guarantee mobility and road safety, where primary prevention seeks to avoid, reduce, or modify the dangers or events that cause deaths and injuries in traffic.

This is the understanding of the president of the Alliance for Health and Road Safety Foundation (ASVIL), Ramón Leonel Ureña, with a specialization in Road Safety from Johns Hopkins University, when he emphasized the importance of understanding the critical risk factors of road safety, studying them and understanding them to prevent them from causing harm to people and the environment.

He said that the five key risk factors are seat belts, speed, alcohol intake, helmets, and child restraint systems, in addition to other emerging risk factors such as distraction, fatigue, psychoactive substances, and electric bicycles, which are responsible for thousands of injuries and deaths each year.

“Lessons learned over the last decade and based on evidence have enabled the introduction of standards, policies, and laws on key risk factors that drive changes in driving behaviors and increased safety related to vehicles, roads, and road users,” he added.

He noted that the Global Road Safety Report 2023 shows a slight decrease in fatalities of 1.19 million per year, a 5% decrease since 2010, but little progress is noted in achieving the goal of a 50% decrease in these figures.

He regretted that even knowing the strong impact of key risk factors in triggering this pandemic, considered the leading cause of death among 5-29-year-olds, only six countries (3% of UN member states) have laws on risk factors that comply with WHO’s best practices.

He highlighted that 25 countries have amended their laws to comply with WHO best practices since the 2018 Road Safety Report.

The recommendations.

He notes that ASVIL campaigns recommendations on how to avoid and address risk factors, including, among them, versus speeding, which is involved in 2 out of 3 fatal crashes.

It stresses the need to drive with extreme caution in urban and high-risk areas, such as parks, schools, clubs, churches, and sports or recreational areas, and to respect the distance between vehicles.

Regarding alcohol consumption, it is recommended that when the person goes out to have fun, the best option is to hire a cab service, use public transportation, or at least combine with someone related who is not going to “drink” and who is the designated driver.

Regarding the mechanical conditions of the vehicle, the organization stresses the importance of verifying the condition of the tires and the balance of their air pressure, brakes, lights, rear-view mirrors, and other safety factors.

It adds that another issue to keep in mind is linked to the physical safety of children on board, for whom it recommends keeping them in restraint seats in the rear line and that the child seat be compatible with the weight and size of the children.

It emphasizes that motorcyclists are involved in 65 percent of accidents and fatal road events due to the non-use of protective helmets, speeding, non-observance of traffic laws and signals, including violation of traffic lights, driving on the wrong way, use of sidewalks, and improperly passing in tiny spaces between vehicles.

Driving without distraction

It should be noted that the use of cell phones while driving is responsible for four percent of deaths in traffic accidents and other road events, so it is recommended that when an urgent need to communicate arises, an appropriate place to park should be selected.

It is also recommended to take a break as soon as you feel the first symptoms of fatigue and that all passengers wear seat belts since their use avoids being ejected from the vehicle in case of a crash, reducing by 50% the mortality of the driver and passengers.