Road safety in Colombia on the decade of action for road safety: preliminary results 2010-2015

Abstract

Introduction: Approximately 1.25 million people die each year and another 50 million are injured by traffic events around the world. To change this trend and reduce Road Traffic Injuries and deaths (RTI) by 50%, the Would Health Organization and the United Nations (2011) promoted the adoption of the decade of global road safety action plan in its members DRSA-2011-2020. Objective: This study describes the preliminary results of the Decade of Global Road Safety Action Plan program in Colombia. Methodology: This is a descriptive study about of RTI in Colombia during the 2010-2015 years. The information on deaths was taken from the National Administrative Department of Statistics and the annual reports from National Institute of Legal Medicine. To estimate the decade of global road safety action plan goal, a methodology proposed in 2011 was used. The results are expressed as delta-Δ between the number of expected/reported cases per year. Results: Although there are discrepancies between the sources of information, they coincide that mortality rates due to RTI have increased annually between 1.5% and 2.6%. Nearly 70% of the deaths are concentrated in motorcyclists (37.7%), pedestrians (27.4%), and cyclists (5.0%). The injuries have increased 3.2% in average annually. The national RTI delta is greater than 40% by 2015 regarding to the DRSA target. Conclusion: Priority policy interventions on motorcyclists and pedestrians must be carried out right away, since they are contributing to more than 65% of RTI. It is also vital law’s enforcement, reducing gaps between norms from the law and its real application. In addition, the quality of information should be an aspect to be analyzed carefully, so that decision-makers can guide resources and reduce growing lag related to DRSA objectives.