More road accidents during New Year season: Experts

Fatal road accidents are increasing in Sri Lanka despite the
authorities taking steps to increase safety measures to protect motorists
and pedestrians

• SLIC has paid more than 10 million as compensation due to road accidents
• Awareness programmes are conducted to decrease the number of tragedies, but those efforts seem to be unsuccessful

During the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, people enjoyed themselves despite the prevailing unpromising economic situation. Even at the time of writing New Year celebrations are going on in this island. While all this takes place people conveniently forget that some fun activities cause death. The Sri Lanka Medical Association (SLMA) organised an awareness programme to inform the public about the accidents that are happening during the festive season. The SLMA officials at the event stated that during this time of the year, a higher number of accidents is reported. Awareness programmes are conducted to decrease the number of tragedies, but those efforts seem to be unsuccessful. “SLIC has paid more than 10 million as compensation due to road accidents,” said Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation (SLIC) CEO Chandana Aluthgama. He said that the driver who drives the vehicle should be more responsible when driving, especially during this New Year Period.  

“Last year, from 1 January to 2 April 2023, 512 fatal accidents occurred in the country. The death toll is 542. There were 1577 serious accidents. There were as many as 2419 minor accidents. There were 1626 material losses. This year, from 1 January to 2 April 2024, there have been 541 fatal accidents. The number of dead is (566) and the number of serious accidents is 857. There were 1934 minor accidents and 964 losses to property,” said the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Director of Traffic Headquarters Manoj Ranagala. He said that police reports and past data show that there is a possibility of the number of deaths through daily traffic accidents doubling in the coming fortnight during the Sinhala New Year period. He added that most of these deaths are preventable because they are caused due to excessive capacity in vehicles, drunkenness and careless driving during this period. SSP Ranagala said, “There is a set of rules to be followed when conducting different types of races during the New Year; for example the supporters who ride on bikes should wear helmets”.

Aluthgama said, “One should have a clear understanding of the vehicle and whether it is roadworthy. Some people cut tire threads once the tire loses its grooves. This should not be done. If the tires are worn out, they should be replaced immediately,” said the Department of Motor Traffic Assistant Commissioner Sujeewa Tennakoon.
 “There are two ways in which motor accidents take place; negligence of the pedestrians/drivers and the non-maintenance of roadways and vehicles,” said a member of the SAFE CITY Colombo project Dr. Sanjaya Perera. He added that AI technology will be used in this project to make it successful. This will be implemented in the Orugodawaththa area, under the ‘0 Road Accidents’ and ‘0 Road Violations.’ First, we have planned to implement the pilot project titled ‘SAFE CITY’ and then move to ‘SAFE SRI LANKA’.

The committee underscored that the purpose to establish the SLMA Road Accident Prevention Expert Committee is to reemphasise on the responsibility of the citizen regarding the safety of the lives of people because there is a risk of people going to die senselessly on the highway in the future. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) most road accidents in the world occur in low-income and middle-income countries.The SLMA maintains that a death occurs every 4 hours due to road accidents. Representatives of the SLMA Road Accident Prevention Expert Committee complained that no matter how much national awareness is created, the casualty figures related to road accidents hasn’t changed over the past few years. They spoke on the lines of car accidents being the worst man-made disasters. The social disaster caused by this has not yet been calculated in this country, but the data published by the World Bank depicts how the economy of a country collapses through road accidents.

The committee presented statistics regarding road accidents to the audience. The gross national product of Sri Lanka is 89 billion US$ (28500 billion Sri Lankan Rupees). “According to World Bank officials, the economic loss to a country due to road accidents is 3 to 5 percent of the Gross National Product. Even if it is thought to be a minimum of three percent, the money lost to the country due to road accidents is 855 billion rupees (2.67 billion dollars),” said a member of the SLMA Road Accident Prevention Expert Committee. Representatives of this committee informed that the bulk of this annual cost, which is close to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan premium, will be created within the next two weeks. It was said that these figures reveal to the country the responsibility every citizen must take to prevent this type of disaster. Also, the next fortnight has been reserved for the school's annual education installments. The committee complains that this should be re-examined whether the given criteria will be implemented in the same way by now.