TRANSPORT-ARGENTINA: Despite Efforts, Accident Rate Still Soaring

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jan 26 2001 (IPS) - Traffic accidents remained the primary cause of death among 18 to 35-year-olds in Argentina last year.

Despite campaigns on traffic safety, the laws are not strictly enforced, nor are there harsh enough sanctions for those who commit traffic violations, according to citizen groups like the ‘Asociación Luchemos por la Vida’ (Fight for Life Association) created 10 years ago with the goal of educating the public and training teachers on traffic safety and carrying out accident prevention campaigns.

Argentina, where traffic accidents cause estimated annual losses of around 10 billion dollars, is one of the countries with the highest rates of traffic accidents per number of vehicles, and one of the countries with the greatest number of pedestrian deaths in the world.

Argentina’s accident rate is four times higher than Spain’s, and six times higher than the United States’.

Last year, 7,545 people were killed and over 120,000 injured in traffic accidents in this Southern Cone country of 37 million, where 6.5 million cars circulate nationwide.

The number of fatalities was just barely below the totals from previous years – 7,864 in 1996, 8,123 in 1997, 7,579 in 1998 and 7,665 en 1999. “We have reached a plateau, but we must now set out on a downward trend,” Alicia Copello, director of public relations at the ‘Asociación Luchemos por la Vida’, told IPS.

In order to achieve that, the association is carrying out preventive and consciousness-raising campaigns that include hard- hitting publicity spots featuring moving testimony by people who have lost loved ones or been left disabled in accidents, or drivers who have caused the death of a family member or friend because they were driving under the influence of alcohol.

But the campaigns have not brought about the hoped-for results, said psychologist María Cristina Isoba, the association’s director of traffic research and education, who added that the problem was that while people were familiar with traffic laws, they openly flouted them.

In her presentation at a congress of the International Association for Accident and Traffic Medicine last year in Stockholm, Isoba said that at first she believed that the high number of accidents in Argentina was a result of widespread unfamiliarity with the laws.

However, after she carried out a survey among drivers and pedestrians, she concluded that people knew how they were supposed to behave in traffic, but that the existing sanctions were too lax, and were not properly enforced.

She found that while 92 percent of drivers were aware that two alcoholic drinks affected an individual’s reflexes, 83 percent admitted that on more than a few occasions, they had driven a vehicle after consuming at least two drinks.

In addition, 76 percent understood that speeding was a factor increasing the risk of accidents, but 45 percent admitted to driving faster than 130 kms per hour on the highway as a rule. Meanwhile, 65 percent of motorcycle drivers were aware of the importance of using a helmet, although only 19 percent said they actually wore one.

Isoba’s data coincided with the results of another study carried out by the association, according to which a mere 27 percent of drivers and 24 percent of front-seat passengers wore seatbelts, despite the mandatory seatbelt law for all people riding in a car.

The hopes awakened less than two years ago by a World Bank- financed programme to cut the losses caused by accidents went up in smoke when the under-secretariat of traffic safety of the city of Buenos Aires was dismantled due to a shortage of funds.

Not even the tragic accident that claimed the life of a local pop star, “Rodrigo”, last year shocked people into changing their ways. Rodrigo was speeding under the influence with no seatbelt on, and with his young son riding in the back seat.

The singer and his front-seat passenger were thrown through the windshield and killed when they hit the pavement. According to Luchemos por la Vida, they would have had a 60 percent chance of survival if they had been wearing their seatbelts.

But while many Argentines have heard the statistics by now, very few have adopted the seatbelt habit. The same thing is true of motorcycle drivers, a majority of whom do not use helmets, and of cyclists, a full 86 percent of whom fail to do so.

Motorcycle and bicycle riders account for more than 1,000 of the nearly 8,000 people killed annually in traffic accidents in Argentina.

Citizen groups working to reduce the high number of accidents say the key is stricter enforcement of existing laws and stiffer sanctions for those who violate them. A 1998 study by Luchemos por la Vida highlighted the scant tickets written up in contrast to the large number of serious infractions.

In the case of running a red light, only one ticket is written up for every 5,925 infractions; for violating a pedestrian’s right of way, the ratio is one in 500,000; and only one ticket is written for every 20,000 violations of the seat-belt law.

Copello said that new measures, such as cameras that have been installed to clock speeders on highways and in urban areas, could begin to give fruit this year.

But “without effective enforcement and sanctions, we will never achieve traffic safety, nor half-way civilised traffic,” said the president of Luchemos por la Vida, Alberto Silveira. “Punishment, without privileges or exceptions, is a necessary part of the learning process.”