Plans to improve road safety

THE Papua New Guinea Road Safety Council has taken a step further in its advancement to establish a proper database for road safety and crash data in PNG.
This undertaking was due to an inefficient system which the Road Safety Council, health, the police and the Motor Vehicle Insurance Ltd had been using since 1982.
Therefore, the Road Safety Council has seen the need to meet current world standards in terms of providing and acquiring accurate data and link them to get the best estimates.
In a current finding by a road safety specialist from the United Kingdom, Dr John Fletcher stated that good data was important for road safety and with the new programme he was introducing, called the Micro-computer Accident Analysis Package (MAAP), it would be beneficial for accessing and addressing vital road issues and trends.
The main issues that will be covered in regards to road safety will be on vital data records for pedestrians, passengers, alcohol, road engineering and speed.
The executive director of the National Road Safety Council Frank Aku said: “All these issues will identify statistics and causes of road accidents which will be vital for serving and improving the lives of the people.”
There are currently 60,000 vehicles on the roads in the country.
However, this figure is relatively small at present and could increase with the continuous economic growth.
The PNG fatality rate on the road is at four deaths per 100,000 people and is considered to be a serious public health issue which requires a multi-agency approach to handle the problem.
Therefore, the MAAP software is a resource that is tailored to the National Road Safety, identified to make data collection easier and find ways to tackle the issues.