Let’s Save Our Children’s Lives with Helmets
By Chhay Sophal
Phnom Penh (30 May 2016): 5-year old Ny’s death was instant. And so was her mother’s. Only her father survived; only her father was wearing a helmet.
The three were traveling together on a motorbike, on National Road 4, in Perk Commune’s Srah Sankum village of Kampong Speu Province, on May 4th, when a truck crashed into them. They were scattered onto the tarmac. Neither Ny nor her mother had anything to protect their heads from brutal impact.
The three met the accident on national route 4 in Perk commune’s Srah Sangkum village of Kampong Speu province on May 4. Their motorbike was crashed by a van and their heads banged on the vehicle and fell down on the tarmac. Ny and the mother did not wear any helmet and they died instantly except the farther.
How many more of our youngest children must die this way? How long must parents suffer the pain of losing their sons and daughters? Why must society bear this sadness so regularly, due to our carelessness?
Every day, tens of thousands of children, as well as teenagers, go to school or the local market, leaving the safety of their homes for the chaotic dangers of busy streets. We know most of them ride on motorcycles. But how many of us know the real risk of riding a motorcycle?
Of all road users, motorcyclists are the mostly likely to die on Cambodia’s roads. But these deaths are not an accident, they are not the result of bad luck – they are preventable. It is our choice to prevent them. How? To ensure helmet use – for drivers, for passengers, and especially for children. For the first time, motorcycle passengers – in addition to drivers – are required to wear helmets, or else receive fines from the traffic police.
In this regard, the Royal Government of Cambodia took an important step forward when the new road traffic law went into effect in January 2015.
Speaking recently to over 100 police officers and civil servants at a ceremony to announce the members of the new National Road Safety Committee at the Interior Ministry, Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Samdech Sar Kheng promised to punish all traffic abusers, even if they are government ministers or part of the armed forces. The era of well-placed people seeking help from high-ranking officials to evade the consequences of their traffic offenses must come to an end, he noted.
When it comes to our vulnerable children, however, this safety measure does not apply. Article 8 of the Road Traffic Law, does state that children up to 3 years old must wear helmets when traveling on motorcycles – but this part of the law has not yet been enforced by the police. This is because children were excluded from the July 2015 sub-decree on fines for traffic law offenders.
Kim Pagna, Cambodia Country Director of AIP Foundation, an international NGO focused on ending the road crisis that plagues developing countries, recently expressed his concern over the sub-decree on enforcement, specifically its exclusion of child passengers. As seen in neighboring countries, stringent law enforcement can translate into almost universal helmet wearing rates, he said adding that not enforcing law helmets for children, can be a fatal decision for many.
According to a 2014 report from the Cambodia Road Crash and Victim Information System, 73% of road crash fatalities in Cambodia involve motorcycle users, which include both child and adult drivers and passengers. 69% of motorcycle fatalities were caused by head injuries, and most of these motorcycle casualties were not wearing a helmet at the time of the accident, the report said.
In a recent AIP Foundation survey of 400 people, 62% responded that they drive motorcycles with children as passengers. Meanwhile, 74% supported the idea of child helmet enforcement, where drivers would be receive fines if their young passengers did not wear helmets. A noteworthy 100% of respondents supported the idea that schools should require both students and educators to wear helmets, as ‘part of the uniform’, according to the survey,.
In other countries, Gen. Ty Long explained, school teachers can take off marks from the pupils who do not wear helmets to encourage children use helmets more frequently.
So, why aren’t more children wearing helmets? The study, conducted in three provinces of Kampong Speu, Kandal and Phnom Penh, found that the main reasons include: parents think kids are too small to wear them; it is too difficult to bring helmets to school; children refuse to wear their helmets; they are only traveling a short distance; or, they lack the money for a helmet.
But let us imagine, what is the price we pay if these kids are not wearing a helmet in a road crash?
Through a concerted effort, we may reach a day when we can stop asking ourselves that question. Media actors can use their unique role to raise awareness towards child helmet use. The government should enforce the new helmet law, to its fullest extent. Civil society organizations should foster new, and strengthen existing, key relationships to ensure greater efforts for road safety.
The private sector has a key role to play, too. Socially responsible companies could come together to establish a helmet fund for children from disadvantaged families. Or, motorcycle manufacturers could consider providing a free, or heavily-subsidized, child helmet with every sale.
Likewise, General Ty Long, Deputy Director of the Department of Traffic Police and Public Order in Cambodia’s General Commissariat of the National Police, urged all relevant institutions, especially schools, to raise awareness of helmet use among kids.
The number of accidents with head injuries among children between 3 and 14 years of age has increased, so we would like to urge all parents and school teachers as well as children themselves to always use a helmet when travelling,” he concluded.
H.E. Rose Salin, Chief of Cabinet and Spokesperson of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, said the ministry gives its support this aim, based off the law. “The ministry set up a working group on traffic safety, including to strategize ways of encouraging students at both lower secondary and high schools, including primary ones, to use helmets, while also appealing to charitable people to donate helmets to them either they ride bikes or motorbikes,” he said.
“When more children use helmets while driving, we truly can save them from death or life-long head injury. We therefore have to join together to protect our kids on the roads,” Gen. Ty Long said.
Let’s do it. Let’s save our children’s lives – simply, with helmets.
