In my country (or in any country that has muslim citizens) there’s this big holiday celebration called Idul Fitri. It’s a celebration after a month of holy Ramadhan fasting. A Phenomena that always happen every year, called ‘mudik’. It’s a journey by a person or a family to go back to their home land to see their beloved relatives or family. The Idul fitri celebration itself is a wonderful thing, but a big mystery always struck the police force. The number of road traffic accidents caused by ‘mudik’, is getting bigger and bigger each year.
Why is that? Is there a solution?
Every day nearly 3,000 events and more than 1.2 million people recorded, died in 2002 due to traffic accidents, while the victims who suffered injuries as a result was recorded 10 times greater than the number of deaths. Financial loss due to accidents were not little, it was estimated more than 65 million U.S. dollars. In fact, under reported is a big issue, because until now the data collection of traffic accidents in developing countries has not been that great. Percentage of accidents that occur in the population with a range of age 15-44 years was 48 to 78%.
If judging in terms of gender, men constitute the majority of deaths in accidents. A problem occurs when a family lose its leading man, later it can lead to an increase in the number of orphans and widows. In the end, an increasing number of poverty.More than 85% of trauma and death due to accidents occurred in developing countries, e.g. Indonesia. It is very alarming, low attention from governments and society towards traffic safety is a threat to its country. A prediction in 2020, lost of DALY(disability-adjusted life years) for traffic accidents become the 3rd highest, and deaths from traffic accidents increased to 80%.In a concept of disease spread, it will always be three factors that influence a disease, ie, the host, agent, and environment. It is the same with traffic accidents; humans as host, the vehicle as the agent, and the road itself as environment. In a study, it says that 90% of accident is caused by man himself, where discipline is a major factor. From the data mentioned that the growth of two-wheeler users is more than the addition of its produced driver's license number (driver's license). In addition, two-wheeler drivers, who aren’t using helmets, are more prone to head injuries than drivers who use helmets. A study by Conrad et al, mentioned that non helmet users nearly 4 times are more susceptible than those using helmets. In fact, wearing helmets reduce the mortality by 39%. Deaths from traffic accidents in developing country, let say Indonesia (since I’m from there), 61% comes from the drivers of two-wheeled, 15% pedestrians 13% of bicycle rider, the rest are four-wheel driver and the passenger. Major contributor to the traffic accidents in Indonesia are the motorcycle riders who often are not careful and often misuse their motorcycle, such as passengers traveling between the regions with more than 2 passengers.
So what’s the solution? Do we have to forbid people go to their ‘mudik’ journey by motorcycle? Of course that is not necessary.
Many things can be done by the government and society. First, isolate road users with vehicle drivers, which means adding and optimizing bridge crossing and sidewalks for pedestrians and bicycle riders. In developing countries, many incidents of traffic accidents is due to the merging of the motor driver, cars, trucks and buses with pedestrians and bicycles. By minimizing the contact, it is expected to decrease traffic accidents. And then, there is government and community commitment to the law. Traffic regulations are available, only implementations that need to be improved. Third, education at all levels. From kids to adults, poor to rich, less education to the educated ones.
It takes an interdisciplinary activity involving governments, health care, schools, and communities, to the incidence, mortality and disability caused by traffic accidents can be arrested. Since I’m a doctor I’ll talk about how can a doctor be involved in this solution (hehe).
I’m going to give an example. A project carried out in Vietnam, the SAVE project. It is a project that aims to improve trauma care and reduce traffic accidents. SAVE is the result of joint European and Asian Countries. This project lasted two years and has a range of activities; TEM (trauma and emergency course), SEP (School-based educational programs) and PAC (Public awareness campaign).
In TEM, some hospital staffs were recruited and trained in trauma and emergency management. Emphasized in a course which emphasize on how to manage an acute traumatic events; such as using emergency ultrasound, application of splints, how to put a cervical collar neck, trauma release helmet on, etc. In SEP, the program involved students and teachers from 12 schools. Pupils who would later play a role in society as adults, implanted knowledge of the "road safety", teachers are also trained that way. PAC is a movement to promote the issue; the press conference on traffic accidents, sharing clothes, hats and books about "road safety, until the ad superhero wearing a helmet.
I say we cannot blame anyone on the rising of number accidents, because it’s already in a system. We gotta be a part of the solution not the problem. Right?
Source: kompas.com , bmj, jakartaglobe(photos)
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