Citation

Beevi S. Medicon Medical Sciences 2022; 3(1): 1-2.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Medicon Open Access)

DOI

10.55162/MCMS.03.043

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Road safety is both a health and development issue of concern. Road traffic injuries are one of the leading causes of deaths, disabili- ties and hospitalizations with severe socioeconomic costs across the world and India in particular. As per the ‘Road Accidents in India 2020’, there were 3,66,138 unfortunate road accidents during 2020, which claimed 1,31,714 lives and caused injuries to 3,48,279 per- sons [1]. As per the World Health Organization, at least one out of 10 persons killed on roads across the world is from India and India positions first in the number of road accident deaths worldwide. The youth are particularly vulnerable on the world’s roads, and road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death for children and young adults aged 5-29 years [2]. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MORTH) has considered road safety an issue of paramount importance. It has been taking proactive steps to address it by a technique called 4Es, Education, Engineering (of both roads and vehicles), Enforcement and Emergency care. Hence instruction and education to the adolescent and youth are of utmost importance to prevent road traffic accidents [1].

Many research studies evaluating the awareness of children, adolescents, and youths have shown less information on road traffic rules. The knowledge regarding the safety and traffic rules among the medical students in Pakistan was inadequate. The finding will help plan future accident prevention programs and emphasise the need to generate awareness among medical students through train- ing and awareness activities [3].

Road traffic injury prevention must be incorporated into a broad range of activities, such as the development and management of road infrastructure, the provision of safer vehicles, law enforcement, mobility planning, the provision of health and hospital services, child welfare services, and urban and environmental planning [4, 5].

A study among medical students reported that wearing a helmet and following the traffic rules were not practiced and the overall knowledge and practice toward road safety was poor [6]. Another study shows that awareness is not common among people, and ...

Language: en