Decade of Action for Road Safety

Decade of Action for Road Safety and the National Road Safety Conference of Sri Lanka will be launched by President Mahinda Rajapaksa on May 11th at Cinnamon Grand Hotel in Colombo.  About 650 delegates are scheduled to attend this conference.

At a Media Conference held in Colombo this morning in this connection, the Minister of Transport Kumara Welgama said that the objective of the conference will be to create awareness among the people about the magnitude of the problems relating to road accidents and to garner people’s cooperation to prevent accidents as it has become a major killer in the country.  He said that the World Bank and the World Health Organization are assisting in this programme - the Decade of Action, which would cover from 2011 to 2020.  The Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 aims to save lives by halting the increasing trends in road traffic deaths and injuries world-wide.

He said that in Sri Lanka around 150 accidents are reported daily which causes to loss around 5 -6 lives. The Minister pointed out that in the 30 year period from 1977 – 2007, over 40,000 people have died in Sri Lanka of road traffic accidents with losses to the economy of the country estimated at over Rs. 100 Billion.  The number of injured during this period amounted to 370,000 and of which 68,440 were seriously injured. He said that the Ministry is taking every measure to save lives by hailing the increasing trends in road traffic dealths and injuries which  greatly affects the economy.

The Secretary to the Ministry Dammika Perera said that it has been found that most of the accidents occur due to over-speeding, during over taking and turning, and with the increased use of motorcycles in the country, it has been found the motor cycles are involved in majority of the accidents and by increasing the awareness among the people and with strict implementation of road safety measures 50% of the accidents could be reduced.  He said that the majority of the victims are pedestrians.  The Minister said that it has been planned to introduce educational programmes in the schools to enlighten the students about road safety.

The Senior Minister for Food and Distribution P.Dayaratne, who is the Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Prevention of Road Accidents, the Chairman of the National Commission for Accident Prevention and former Minister Mano Wijeratne, the WHO representative  in Sri Lanka Mr. Mehta, and several others spoke at this media conference,