ARAB TIMES, WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015
LOCAL
2
Other Voices
#SaveKidsLives
Traffic injury No. 1 cause of
death for 15-17-year-olds
By Dr Mubashar Riaz Sheikh
UN Resident Coordinator/UNDP
Resident Representative in the
State of Kuwait.
THIS week marks the third United Nations
Global Road Safety Week, spearheaded by
the UN’s public health arm, the World
Health Organisation (WHO). The theme
for
this
year’s
observance
is
#SaveKidsLives. In Kuwait we often focus
on the obvious challenges facing traffic
and road-users, such
as the delays caused
by peak-hour traffic
jams. However, I
would suggest that
every frequent roaduser has seen the aftermath of a road accident and may even
have been involved in
an accident or touched
Sheikh
by one in some way.
Road accidents can have a devastating
impact on our lives, particularly where
children are concerned, and yet they are
frequently preventable and the consequences can be mitigated by straightforward measures such as child seats.
According to figures from the Ministry
of the Interior of the State of Kuwait, in
2014, almost 25 percent of all road accident fatalities in Kuwait were victims aged
20 years and below. A further 26.2 percent
of road fatalities involved victims in the 21
to 30 years age bracket. More than 230
young lives cut short on the roads in just
one year.
The UN has declared 2011-2020 to be
the Decade of Action for Road Safety, in
response to the dreadful toll that road accidents take around the world. More than
500 children are killed on the roads each
day, making road traffic injury the number
one cause of death for 15-17 years olds
internationally and the fourth cause of
death for five-nine years old internationally. For the past three years, the United
Nations has commemorated Global Road
Safety Week to draw attention to these horrifying statistics and encourage governments and civil society to adopt safe practices to reduce accidents and reduce the
harm caused by accidents. The United
Nations Development Programme is committed to supporting the State of Kuwait to
address some of these challenges through
its project to support the implementation of
the national traffic strategy. This project is
directed, among other goals, at building the
capacity of Ministry of Interior personnel
to improve emergency response times and
identify traffic accident danger areas to
improve overall traffic safety.
Excessive speed is one of the major contributing factors to road fatalities and injury.
Research in Australia, another high-income
country that has a relatively heavy reliance
on motor vehicle transport, indicates that
reducing the speed limit on highways from
110k/h to 100k/h led to a 20 percent reduction in road fatalities in the state of South
Australia. A simple illustration can demonstrate how effective this small difference can
be: after a vehicle that had been travelling at
100k/h has stopped moving, a vehicle that
had been travelling at 110k/h will still be
travelling at 50k/h and will need 14m to
stop. The speed limit on Kuwait’s ring roads
and other arterial roads is 120k/h.
In recent years, the State of Kuwait has
introduced stricter measures to promote
road safety, including a ban on the use of
mobile phones while driving. This effort is
to be applauded. However, anecdotally one
can see that other basic measures to prevent child injury are not being implemented by drivers. Children are frequently seen
sitting in the car without any child seat or
booster seat that would offer crucial protection in the event of a crash. It is even
commonplace to see children (sometimes
more than one) sitting unrestrained in the
front seat of the car. WHO estimates that
the use of booster seats (as opposed to seat
belts alone) for children aged four to seven
years reduces the risk of children sustaining significant injuries during a crash.
PAYS stresses Kuwaiti squash development
KUWAIT CITY, May 5, (KUNA): Chairman
and Director General of the Public Authority
for Youth and Sport (PAYS) Sheikh Ahmad
Al-Mansour Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah stressed
the importance of coordination between
organizers of squash game in Kuwait and
their Arab, Asian, and African counterparts
in order to enhance the game in Kuwait and
achieve better results at the international
level.
Sheikh Ahmad Al-Mansour made his
remarks in a press statement following his
meeting with the President of the Asian Squash
Federation David Mui (Hong Kong), his
deputy Radhi Nawaz (Iraq), Chairman of Arab
Squash Federation Asem Kalifa (Egypt), and
President of the Squash Federation of Africa
Hany Hamouda (Egypt).
Kuwait calls for closer EU-GCC
co-op to resolve Syria’s crisis
NATO chief praises Kuwait role in promoting regional peace
BRUSSELS, May 5,
(KUNA):
Kuwait
Tuesday called for continuous work and coordination between the EU
and
the
Gulf
Cooperation
Council
(GCC) to find a political
solution to the ongoing
crisis in Syria.
Speaking at an EU-GCC
political dialogue of senior officials in Brussels, Counsellor
Abdullah Al Moayad form the
GCC administration in the
Kuwait Foreign Ministry said
the solution should be based on
the Geneva 1 accord of 2012
and guarantee the security, stability and territorial sovereignty of Syria.
“The humanitarian situation in
Syria is dangerous and getting
worse,” warned Al Moayad who
led the four-member Kuwaiti delegation at the meeting.
He noted that as the Syrian crisis enters into its fifth year not
much attention has been given to
the situation of millions of children who have lost their education due to the war and destruction.
“Therefore we hope that the EU
through its humanitarian and relief
organisations would create the
appropriate means such as mobile
schools for the children in the
refugee centres,” he said.
The Kuwaiti official noted that
Kuwait has hosted three international donors’ conferences to help
the humanitarian situation in
Syria and he underlined the
responsibility of the international
community towards the Syrian
people.
Meanwhile, the 21st EU-GCC
political dialogue ended here this
afternoon after discussing developments in the region including
Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Iran and
Libya, human rights issues and
fight against terrorism.
KUNA photo
The GCC-EU political dialogue in progress in Brussels, Belgium
The EU-GCC cooperation committee met here yesterday and discussed ways to boost economic,
trade, energy and investments
cooperation between the two
regional blocs.
Meanwhile, NATO Secretary
General Jens Stoltenberg Tuesday
underlined that Kuwait plays “a
central role in promoting regional
security and that Kuwait is a force
of moderation and a voice of reason in a fast changing and turbulent region”.
NATO deputy spokesperson
Romero Carmen told the Kuwait
News Agency (KUNA) that
Stoltenberg made the statement
during a bilateral meeting with
Kuwaiti
National
Security
Apparatus Chairman Sheikh
Thamer Ali Al-Sabah earlier
today.
Sheikh Thamer also meet with
the North Atlantic Council which
is made up of the 28 permanent
representatives of the NATO.
They discussed the main security challenges and events in the
region, including Syria, Iraq,
Libya, Iran and Yemen, noted
Carmen.
Both sides stressed that “we all
share commons security challenges and threats posed by terrorism and extremism, the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction, and the spillover
from failing and failed states.”
Stoltenberg said that recent
events in the region, “including
the rise of a particularly barbaric
form of extremism, have underlined the need for us to work even
more closely together for international security, stability and
peace.” He underlined that
“Kuwait has proven to be a trail-
blazer
in
the
Istanbul
Cooperation Initiative (ICI).” He
also said that Kuwait is helping to
bring NATO closer to the Gulf
region since Kuwait has generously offered to establish a
NATO-ICI Regional Center.” On
his part, Sheikh Thamer updated
the NATO Secretary General and
the members of the North
Atlantic Council on how the
implementation of the center is
progressing.
The Secretary General and the
North Atlantic Council also welcomed progress made in the
NATO Kuwait Transit Agreement.
The Secretary General stressed
that both the NATO-ICI Center
and the Transit Agreement show
that NATO and Kuwait are really
moving forward with their partnership, the spokesperson told
KUNA.