Road Safety Essay Introduction

936 Words4 Pages

The level of road safety in a country is determined in terms of its traffic accident health-related consequences, i.e. as the number of injuries and fatalities due to traffic accidents[Field], 2013)According to the WHO’s global status report on road safety in 2015, over 1.2 million people die every year due to traffic accidents, making it the ninth leading cause of death across all age groups, which is expected to become the seventh leading cause of death by 2030, and the number one cause of death among those aged 15-29. In addition, injuries in general, represent 12% of the global burden of disease (leading to almost 16,000 deaths every day around the world), and according to WHO data, deaths from road traffic injuries represent 25% of all …show more content…

According to a report published by world life expectancy using data from the World Health Organization, road traffic injuries claimed a total of 821 lives in Lebanon in 2014. Age adjusted death rate was 17.20 per 100,000 of Lebanon’s population (which is lower than the global death rate of 17.40 per 100,000), making road traffic accidents the fourth most common cause of death, behind coronary heart disease, stroke and breast cancer(World Life Expectancy, …show more content…

Although the road safety law is in place, its enforcement is weak. However, according to the WHO's Global Status Report on Road Safety in 2015, the existing speed limit law which sets different speed limits for each of the rural, urban and motorway roads is weakly enforced by the proper authorities, the existing drunk driving law which permits random breathing tests lacks strict implementation, as for the existing motorcycle helmet law which should apply for both the driver and passengers is poorly enforced as well, while the seat belt use law which should apply to both front and rear passengers is also weakly enforced as only 14% of Lebanese drivers use the seat belt, and finally there is complete absence of enforcement for the child restrain law (WHO,

Open Document