Global Road Safety Partnership - "Working together to save lives"

The Global Road Safety Initiative (GRSI) is a five-year project running from 2005 to 2009 that is sponsored by seven large global companies, including GM, Toyota, Ford, Honda, Renault, Michelin and Shell. Ann Yuan works as GRSI coordinator at the office of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Beijing.

The Global Road Safety Partnership is an organization which implements road safety projects in low and middle income countries. In China, the partnership is coordinating several pilot projects aiming to find solutions to the most pressing road safety issues.

"They are all related to the five major risk factors on road safety that are indicated in the World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention jointly issued by the World Bank and the World Health Organization in 2004. The five risk factors include seatbelt use, helmet use, drinking&driving, speeding and vulnerable road user safety facilities on the road. So all the projects are related to those themes," Yuan says.

In China, approximately 100,000 people die in traffic accidents every year. According to the Ministry of Public Security, since 1996 China has been topping the list of road deaths worldwide. The number is enormous, even considering China's huge population of 1.3 billion. Beijing, with its 3 million cars, has the highest number of road accidents in China. With such a huge bulk of cars, it is difficult to pinpoint the exact root of the problems. Instead, the issue should be addressed in a comprehensive way, Yuan says.

Managing the unmanageable

"It is difficult to say what the main problem (in Beijing) is. It can be viewed from different angles. There is the rapid growth of mobilization, so there are a lot more cars on the road now, compared to five to ten years ago. The road design is not suitable to today's situation. Many road designers did not even drive a car 5-10 years ago, and they seldom thought about safety factors in their designs. The mixed traffic is also a major problem to safety. Motor vehicles and non-motor vehicles and pedestrians of course use the same roads which makes the situation very complicated and dangerous. Cyclists and pedestrians are not aware of their own safety, same with motor vehicle drivers, who never yield to pedestrians. The drivers always think they have the priority on the road. We keep saying that to make the roads safe, we have to take a system approach which includes engineering, enforcement and education," Yuan says.

Education is a key element in road safety, but it alone is not enough. In addition to educating the general public about traffic rules, Yuan thinks that the current driver's license examination system should also be reformed to make it more suited to today's traffic environment. In China, drivers have a point system whereby every year they start off with twelve points on their traffic record. After every offense, a certain number of points is deducted. Once all the points are used up, they have to go back to driving school for more lessons.

"In China, the driving schools never teach new drivers how to drive safely, they only teach them the skills for how to drive a car. If new drivers are taught good driving habits from the beginning, it is much easier than to change their behavior after they've been driving for ten years," Yuan says.

As for the enforcement of traffic laws, Yuan admits that it is a big problem in China.

"The current law requires that the driver and the front seat passenger wear seat belts. But not many people are aware of the law and professional drivers especially tend to ignore it. Private car drivers, on the contrary, are pretty good with this. We need education. Taxi drivers who feel that wearing a seatbelt is uncomfortable need to be shown scientific evidence proving how important it is to wear them. In addition, enforcement is pivotal, if the traffic police find those people who do not wear seat belts, the situation would be much better. The reason why enforcement is weak I think is really a lack of resources," Yuan analyzes.

Grim statistics

Drinking and driving is also a very serious problem in China. The legal blood alcohol content (BAC) for drinking and driving is 0.2 - 0.8 and for drunk driving over 0.8. This problem is also again compounded by the authorities' lack of both human and technical resources. Traffic police do not have enough breathalyzers to efficiently spot drunk drivers, Yuan says.

GRSI cooperated with local police in two cities in Guangxi to conduct road side surveys and passed out questionnaires to chart people's attitudes and awareness of the legal restrictions on drinking and driving.

"The road side survey shows that almost 100 percent of the people do not know the national BAC level for driving. They have no idea what is drinking and driving in legal terms. 78 percent have never been stopped by traffic police in the past 2 years and only 0.3 percent had ever been fined for drinking and driving. The conclusion was that there is a lack of public awareness and enforcement activity," Yuan says.

In a GRSI crash survey from December 2006 to July 2007 all drivers involved in a severe car crash had to submit to a blood test. This study aimed to give a general picture of the number of alcohol-related car accidents taking place in China.

"A total of 267 severe car accidents were registered in the two cities during that time period. Of the 400 drivers involved, 97 were considered to be drinking and driving, which is about 25 percent. Of all the crashes, 95 were alcohol related, which represents 35.2 percent of the total. So the problem is very serious," Yuan says.

From May to November of 2008, the GRSI is implementing a public campaign in Nanning and Liuzhou, which aims to raise awareness of the risks involved with drinking and driving.

"In those six months, we will have two runs of public education campaigns and two runs of enhanced enforcement. Since people don't know the law or about the effects of alcohol on their body, we will let them know through our campaign," Yuan explains.

Developing emergency response and public transportation

The number of cars in Beijing exceeded three million last year. (Image: Radio86)The Global Road Safety Partnership program has devised a plan that approaches the traffic problems systematically via the five E's, or education, enforcement, engineering, emergency and evaluation, Yuan says. The GRSI focuses on prevention, but post-crash response is also important, she adds, although it could be more efficient if the public had better knowledge of what to do in emergency situations.

"In China's case, I again think that the emergency response system is not really established. It also takes time for the people to make the phone call and for the emergency vehicle to show up. And also, the people's knowledge of for instance first aid is poor. If they have some first aid knowledge, they can also help," Yuan says.

The three key factors that contribute to road safety are roads, people and vehicles, Yuan enumerates. In the major cities, the condition of the vehicles is in general pretty good, she says, but in the countryside, the situation is affected by bad roads and the large number of agricultural vehicles.

The government is encouraging people to use public transportation, but the most pressing problem is that it cannot accommodate everybody despite the huge expansion projects and road adjustments already underway. Traffic during the upcoming Olympics is not a major concern, Yuan says, instead daily traffic is the issue that Beijing's road administration is most concerned with.

"People are excited about having a car, they feel it is convenient. At this time, because of congestion, the government feels it needs to encourage people to use public transportation, but on the other hand, I don't think the facilities are good enough for those private car owners to switch back to public transportation. Beijing has put a lot of effort into improving the public transportation system. But it will take time. When people feel that public transportation is convenient and comfortable, I think they will use it more."