Cambodian school children
H.E. Ouk Kim Lek, Deputy General Commissioner of the National Police
Senior members of the Cambodian government have endorsed the Call for a Decade of Action for Road Safety at a helmet safety event in Phnom Penh.
Cambodia’s Education Minister, H.E. Im Sithy, was joined by Deputy Police Commissioner, H.E. Ouk Kim Lek and the State Deputy of the Ministry of Transportation, H.E. Slot Sambo, in supporting the Decade of Action call. Watched by hundreds of children in Make Roads Safe t-shirts, the dignitaries added their names to Decade of Action signboards at a Helmets for Kids ceremony in Phnom Penh organised by the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation (AIP Foundation), the Cambodian Ministry of Interior, the Cambodian National Road Safety Committee and the Make Roads Safe campaign. The event saw 880 helmets donated to all children and teachers of Wat Botumwatey and Anawath primary schools as a symbolic step towards achieving one of the proposed Decade’s targets – 100% helmet wearing worldwide by 2020.
Each year, road crashes kill 1.3 million people worldwide – a figure forecasted to increase to more than 1.9 million by 2020 if no preventative actions are taken. In response to such alarming statistics, the Make Roads Safe campaign is calling for a UN coordinated ‘Decade of Action for Road Safety’ with the objective of reducing the projected fatality rate by 50% by 2020. The ‘decade’ would provide a timeframe for action that would encourage political and resource commitments both globally and nationally. AIP Foundation has been leading the campaign for the ‘Call for a Decade of Action’ in Southeast Asia.
The World Health Organization predicts that road crashes will become the leading cause of disability and premature death for children ages 5 and above by 2015. In Cambodia, road traffic accidents are the largest non-communicable health burden, and motorcycles are the biggest source of road traffic deaths and injuries.
“The campaign calls for 100 percent worldwide helmet use by 2020,” said H.E Tram Iv Toek, President of NRSC and Minister of Public Works and Transport. “Donation and awareness programmes like Helmets for Kids can help Cambodia meet this ambitious but important goal.”
“Governments must combat the world’s fastest growing public health emergency by committing to a road safety ‘Decade of Action,’ which would save 5 million lives and prevent 50 million serious injuries,” said Saul Billingsley, Deputy Director General of the FIA Foundation.
“Intervention strategies proven to save lives, such as AIP Foundation’s Helmets for Kids program, should be implemented at greater scale if we want to achieve the decade goal,” said AIP Foundation President Greig Craft. “The programme educates about the importance of helmet use, distributes helmets and implements extracurricular activities at schools to keep helmet rates high.”
H.E. Ouk Kim Lek, Deputy General Commissioner of the National Police said police enforcement is crucial to make this decade a success. “Helmet-use behaviour will not change until people see they can avoid fines by doing so,” he said. “Simply by properly enforcing helmet laws, our police force can make a large contribution to ending this public health crisis.”
The AIP Foundation’s ‘Helmets for Kids’ programme has distributed more than 400,000 child helmets to primary schools throughout Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia and AIP’s not-for-profit Protec Helmet Company has developed the world’s first tropical helmet and child motorbike helmet standards.