Garth Rattray
I HAVE nothing but admiration and respect for the National Road Safety Council (NRSC). Its members are unencumbered in their ideas and proposals for making our roadways safe because they are apolitical, multifaceted and multidirectional.
Their website explains that the NRSC came about because discussions took place (in late 1991) based on a paper that the late Professor, Sir John Golding, wrote for the Medical Association of Jamaica highlighting the serious problems associated with our high incidence of motor vehicle crashes.
The NRSC had its first meeting on September 28, 1992. It is officially recognised under Ministry Paper #24, 1993, and is a non-profit organisation that receives funding from the public and private sector. It has a two-fold mandate (1) to develop and implement road safety promotional activities and conduct public education programmes and (2) to act as a lobby group for the promotion of road safety. The group's activities are aimed at "reducing the level of accidents and lowering the cost to society both in terms of human suffering and financial cost".
The NRSC has been, is, and hopefully will continue to be a very influential entity in matters of road safety. The council operates with an executive body and several 'stakeholders' drawn from organisations that have a direct or indirect interest in or impact on road safety.
These include the National Works Agency, the Police Traffic Depart-ment, the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce, the Jamaica Gasolene Retailers' Association and the Ministry of Health, to name a few. The full council has a membership of over 20 persons.
CHANGES
In recent months, the electronic media and all three major publications (The Gleaner, The Observer and The Sunday Herald) have been publicising that changes are being put forward by the NRSC to the road code in addition to several other matters related to our driving privileges along with safety mandates for drivers and riders.
Although the proposals seemed like a valiant effort at revolutionising several aspects of obtaining driver's licences and the way that we use our roads, I harboured a few misgivings. I contacted the council and their very gracious and informative executive director, Mrs. Paula Fletcher, returned my call.
She told me that the NRSC and its stakeholders are open to suggestions and she set the stage by commenting that Jamaicans would pay more attention to traffic deaths if they realised that it would take several large airline crashes to eclipse the number of people that die (needlessly) on our roads every year.
Mrs. Fletcher explained that some of the proposed changes were gleaned from her trip to a ThinkFirst National Injury Prevention Foundation meeting in the United States. This award-winning organisation believes in "injury prevention through education, research and policy".
FRUSTRATION
It grew out of the frustration that members of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons experienced at their inability to fix brain and spinal cord injuries. They shared the belief that a national injury prevention programme was the only way to prevent morbidity and mortality on the roads.
The NRSC's draft proposals aim to reduce injury, disability and death on our roads through changes to the road code, driver's manual, mandatory safety helmets, hands-free cellphones while driving, the regularisation and certification of driving schools and overhauling the learning process for new drivers along with a provisional driving permit.
Next week: Problems with the NRSC proposals.
Dr. Garth A. Rattray is a medical doctor with a family practice.
