A topic unheard of in Sri Lanka, a country that records one of the highest death and injury rates in the world. We hear tragic road kills on daily basis, a number averaging to 8 deaths a day! From the latest killing of 14 innocent passengers in Passara, we are with a long history. Yet, no specific action to curtail.
Nearly 60 per cent of serious collisions are caused by single-vehicle collisions in which heavy vehicles travelling fast crash into a pedestrian or fixed object.
As statistics of fatalities continue to rise, the Police and relevant authorities are currently struggling to curb a large number of senseless accidental deaths. Experts in the field say that while the majority of deaths which often occur due to human error or sheer carelessness are avoidable and preventable, the country should go beyond law enforcement to introduce better road infrastructure, modern public transportation as well as tougher regulations to address the issue.
True that, but there is an area we badly missed!
Wrong wording!
From the wording we go wrong, the vehicular incidents cannot be classified as accidents. In fact, these are collisions. That is to say within the control and avoidable.
Accident – An unplanned, unavoidable event resulting in injury or property damage
Lightning
Collision – An event that is usually avoidable by one or more drivers. That is,
one or more drivers FAILED to apply every reasonable effort to avoid it.
A made up problem
A NCRS official said drivers of buses, containers, and trucks were often former conductors, cleaners, helpers, etc., and not professionals and that most learnings occurred through trial and error.
“There is no mid-career training,” the official said, adding that road safety training should be made compulsory for drivers. But no action is taken with a focus on the outcome.
Contributors to Collisions
There are three key, or rathe the only factors causing all this deaths and injuries.
- Driver factor
- Vehicle factor
- Road condition factor
The Driver factor contributes to most local collisions. In addressing these Drivers need to fulfill three key parameters.
Recognize Hazards
Understand the Defense
Act correctly and timely
Solution and Action
As a country, we have done nothing in prevention. It’s not only the public transport is responsible due to its erratic systems and uncontrolled behavior. And not only the commercial vehicle drivers, smaller Tuks, and Motorcycles greatly contribute to the tragedy.
The economic cost of the Government is massive in managing repercussions. The countries annual health bill is over LKR 800BN, a major portion of this will be upon collisions.
However private sector/corporates can go a long way in this. Anything is avoidable and that’s what we call defensive driving! We are in a time that we need to work on cutting all costs from money to time where possible, towards better productivity.
Avoid it all, its doable!
Mobility Alliance offers varying in-house training on Defensive driving. It’s not only the prevention of collisions and costs. Even a single-day program will offer greater benefits on fuel, maintenance, repair, tires, and even HR costs.
Not only conducting the training, the monitoring and follow-ups also come as a part of. No plan or training will be productive sans KPIs. Results are both quantitative and qualitative, delivering results to all stakeholders from the Institutions, Employees, Environment, and Society as a whole.
Our training is beyond legal needs or driver discipline, rather a psychological approach to get their best within. Let’s make responsible drivers and employees benefitting the company and the society.
Reach us via inquiry form https://mobility.lk/contact/ or simply call +94 777 007 139.