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Writes Kalvi Almosen, law and order chief at Western Police Prefecture, in a commentary to Postimees: «Cars are driven by real people with their human flaws and weaknesses, and, therefore, traffic accidents can never totally be avoided. Even so, absolutely everyone can help reduce the likelihood of fatal crashes. With even the slightest changes in traffic routine, the sum total will save real lives of real people.»
According to Road Administration data, Estonia has seen 49 deaths and 1,242 injured in traffic, from this January to September. 2012, however, ended with 87 and 1,702, respectively.
On EU roads, a daily average of 75 lives are lost, with 750 seriously injured. In 2010, we Estonians may have sighed somewhat for relief, as the numbers were going down: per million inhabitants, we lost 58 in traffic; back then, under the European Union average of 62.
The success, however, proved short-lived. In 2011, the death toll was 75; in 2012 – 65. At that, the EU average has slowly but surely decreased: 60 in 2011, 55 in 2012. The UK, Swedish and Dutch levels of under 35 deaths per million, remain out of sight. Surely, we may always claim our roads have faced times even worse, like 2008 with almost a hundred lives lost in traffic, per million; hardly a solace, however...
As also pointed out, in his article, by Kalvi Almosen, traffic accidents rarely come with a single clear-cut reason to them; usually, numerous adverse circumstances coincide.
Let’s admit: our roads network is not that dilapidated, the traffic not totally unregulated, the car fleet not so old as to be begging for trouble.
Rather, the road-users must take an honest look at themselves. Is use of reflector, in the dark, self evident? Yes, but only amongst kindergarten kids and younger school-children – and they’re not out that much, in the dark. As we grow older, the glow of reflector does grow in its importance.
Does the red light stop us? Road Administration says pedestrians take an increasingly loose approach – every eighth will start his/her way across the street with the «red» still shining; a couple of years ago, it was less, by almost a half. Close to a quarter of accidents with pedestrian Tallinners have hit them due to crossing streets in wrong places. Meanwhile, the drivers have improved their act: the ranks of traffic-lights-ignorers have thinned.
And, finally, the percentage of drunk drivers – last year, the number of traffic accidents related to these were 170, with eight dead and 231 people injured. The year before, such accidents amounted to 178, with 14 deaths and 255 injured.
Even so, the only way of avoiding accidents is to look after ourselves. The problem being: we seem slow to get the message.