Paul Clemetson, director of the National Road Safety Unit.
Teino Evans, Staff Reporter
THE NATIONAL Road Safety Unit (RSU) is reporting that child pedestrians are killed at a higher rate in Jamaica more than anywhere else in the world.
Information out of the RSU shows that one out of every three pedestrians killed in Jamaica is a child, compared to the global average of one out of every four.
"We find that Jamaica has exceeded the global mean by far," said Paul Clemetson, director of the Road Safety Unit.
Now, the RSU is trying to reverse the trend, and has stepped up the campaign that was launched two years ago to protect child pedestrians. They will be targeting more than 90 primary schools per year in an education campaign and, according to Mr. Clemetson, "we will visit and speak to both children and members of the PTA (Parent Teachers Association) on practising and observing proper behaviours in road usage."
AWARENESS
Mr. Clemetson said there was a need for greater awareness among road users, and this has become especially important in light of the increasing number of pedestrians generally, who have been killed in traffic accidents.
In a recent study undertaken by the Road Safety Unit, it was revealed that over the past 11 years, "a minor epidemic has been taking place on the nation's streets", and that pedestrians constantly recorded the highest fatalities, doubling and at times tripling the fatality rate of other road users.
The study showed that of the 4,526 road users who have been killed on Jamaican streets between 1991 and 2002, 1,493 have been pedestrians, compared to 703 drivers, 1,126 passengers and 989 cyclists. Among the number of pedestrians killed, 30-35 per cent of them were children under the age of 15.
Recently, the RSU visited the St. Patrick's Primary School in Kingston, where they made presentations to teachers and parents about proper road usage and safety tips that they could teach their children. Many parents welcomed the presentation, and according to one parent, "it never really occurred to me before how risky it was for children on the road, but now I'm more aware."
CAMPAIGN
So far, Mr. Clemetson says the campaign to protect child pedestrians has been successful. In December of 2001, the RSU launched its 'Road Safety Books,' developed by the RSU, the Ministry of Transport and Works and consultants from SweRoad in Sweden. "We printed 276,000 of these books which we made available to the Ministry of Education so that they could be introduced and incorporated within the curriculum of schools," Mr. Clemetson said.
In addition, the RSU has also developed news articles and commercials that speak to the limitations of children. "Motorists need to take a greater responsibility to look out for children in traffic and programmes will be developed by the RSU to make motorists more aware," Clemetson said. Of the 34 children killed since the start of the year, 22 were pedestrians.
