EDITORIAL - A long way from road safety

In the first year of the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety, a bus slammed into a taxi along Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City and then sped away. Inside the taxi, journalist and University of the Philippines professor Lourdes Estella Simbulan lay dying from a head wound. Her death on May 13, 2011 reinforced the reputation of Commonwealth as a “killer highway” and led to the enforcement of a speed limit along the avenue.

Since then more accidents, some of them fatal, continued to occur along Commonwealth. The latest, again involving a bus, took place Monday night. At least 42 passengers were reported hurt when an Everlasting Transport Inc. bus smashed into a concrete post near the Tandang Sora flyover in Old Balara at past 10 p.m. Police, quoting the driver, said the bus lost its brakes. All 10 buses of Everlasting have been grounded and required to undergo roadworthiness by the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board. The bus firm’s drivers will also be tested for drug abuse.

In Caloocan City also on Monday night, 32 people were hurt when a truck slammed into an Alro Trans bus at the corner of Fifth and Sixth Avenues – a spot where police said many other vehicular accidents have occurred. Probers are still trying to determine who was at fault in the accident.

When the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety was launched, the Department of Transportation of Communications announced that it aimed to cut the number of road accidents in the country by half by 2020. Road safety was the battle cry, with a DOTC official saying it would not remain a mere slogan but would become a way of life.

A global movement for road safety previously reported that approximately 3,500 people around the world die of road accidents daily or about 1.3 million each year, with another 50 million injured. The casualty count is highest in developing countries, according to the movement.

The high incidence of road accidents in this country has been attributed to poorly maintained vehicles, and to drivers in a hurry or high on drugs to keep them awake especially for long drives. As the latest accidents have shown, the government needs to do more if it wants road safety to become a way of life.