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Create mass awareness to check road accidents

Speakers tell workshop

Staff Correspondent
Traffic and safety rules should be included in primary and secondary level education to teach the youngsters about safe road behaviour, said Prof AAMS Arefin Siddique, vice-chancellor of Dhaka University while presiding over a workshop yesterday.
"Though road accident Is an issue of great concern we hardly pay any attention to it," he added.
The workshop titled Nirapod Poth Chola' (Safe Road Movement) was
organised by the Centre for Rehabilitation of the Paralysed (CRP) in association with the Dhaka University unit of Development of Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation for Disabled (DESCOD) at the RC Majumdar Seminar Hall.
The speakers said 21 percent of the victims of road accidents are children.
They said road accident victims occupy around 25 to 30 percent of hospital beds in government hospitals according to a World Health Organisation and World Bank study conducted in 2004.
The speakers termed road accidents an epi-
demic that is taking more lives than what other diseases take together.
Giving the example of swine flu virus, they lamented that road accidents that account for more than 1.2 million deaths and over 50 million injuries globally every year never receive as much attention like the swine flu which killed only a handful of people worldwide.
They said properties worth over Tk 5,000 crore are also damaged due to road accidents each year.
CRP founder and Convener Valerie Taylor stressed the need for creating mass awareness among the general people regarding safe road behaviour.
Most of the accidents are
caused due to unsafe behaviour in streets reflecting the lack of awareness among the people, she said.
It is vital that all stakeholders including the NGOs, students, activists and also the government should work together to build awareness about road accidents, she added.
The speakers also underscored the importance of a well-designed road infrastructure and better training of drivers to minimise the chances of road accidents and subsequent casualties.
Actor Ilias Kanchon, FIA Foundation Coordinator Shakierah Ispahan! and CRP Chief Executive Officer Emdad Hossain also spoke at the workshop.