Five-year-old Hala Mohamed is showing off her T-shirt with a big bee printed on it. “This is the traffic bee,” she boasted, explaining how the bee teaches us about road safety and traffic lights. “Red means stop, yellow get ready and green go.” She paused. “And we should always respect traffic lights,” she added. As part of the global week for road safety (6-13 May ) NGOs, the state, and the WHO Egypt Country Office united efforts to promote road safety in general and among young Egyptians in particular. The week's activities were launched at Maadi Public Library where representatives of the National Road Safety Council (NRSC), the Egyptian Society for Road Safety, and a handful of people's initiatives showcased their tireless efforts to raise awareness on road safety in Egypt. ‘Road Safety is No Accident', was the world's slogan in 2004. The National Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 and the Road Safety in Ten Countries project (RS10), are global efforts to combat road traffic and stop the bloodshed. But despite all these efforts, Egypt remains the country in the east Mediterranean region with the highest number of fatalities and injuries related to road safety accidents. The Central Agency For Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) 2011 statistics: within one hour at least one person dies and three are injured in road accidents. When Deana Blanchard, an Egyptian teen, was hit by a speeding bus along the Maadi Cornish in 2004, the tragic death led her family and several others to create the Egyptian Society for Road Safety (ESRS). Based in Maadi, the NGO aimed to promote road safety awareness among young Egyptians, especially school children, as well as to make traffic signs that would help pedestrians be safer. Out of the 23 road safety NGOs in Egypt, ESRS is more focussed on pedestrian safety, explained Ebtehal Shawki, ESRS representative. “Nobody, especially a parent should have to suffer the loss of a child or a loved one to such unnecessary and horrific crashes” is the motto of ESRS. Hence, 80 stop signs, six pedestrian crossings and a driving school for children to learn traffic rules were set up as a starting point in Maadi. The project aims to cover all of Egypt, one district at a time. “Currently, we are about to launch our first pedestrian bridge in Ezbat Al-Nasr under-privileged district on the ring road. We started to lobby for it in 2009,” Shawky told Al-Ahram Weekly. Adopting the same line of thought is E-Mokhalfa (Electronic traffic ticket), an initiative that promotes local interaction to help monitor traffic violations by encouraging people to capture violations on camera and post them on the website which has reached 30,000 followers. On the other hand is Ebdaa Benafsak (Start with Yourself) Facebook campaign. “We started last April when officer Ayman announced it on his traffic radio programme,” Mohamed Suleiman, Ebdaa Benafsak coordinator, explained to the Weekly how the campaign picked up on-line and the Facebook group became a hub for road safety awareness debates. Aside from print-outs and debates, the initiative adopts a new campaign this summer titled “Start with your child”. “We shall tour summer schools and sports clubs to promote road safety, for they [children] will be the ones driving over the coming years,” Suleiman explained. And indeed the country's future drivers are quite aware of the problem. At the Maadi Public Library, as part of the children's programme for road safety initiated by ESRS, children voiced their fear of the Egyptian traffic status quo. “I've noticed how many people are driving while talking on the phone, or talking to someone sitting next to them,” said 11-year-old Shams Abdel-Dhaher. “A driver should not do such things; he should focus on driving,” Abdel-Dhaher said. Sondos Tarek, also 11, believes that breaking traffic lights could put the driver and children in danger. Aya Ahmed, 12, is really bothered by road safety rules that are broken. “My older brother is currently learning how to drive, yet he talks on his mobile while driving and does not put on his seat belt. Now I will go tell him [about road safety rules]. He sometimes listens, like when I asked him not to put his seat too far from the steering wheel so that he stays alert and focussed,” Ahmed explained to the Weekly. On a parallel note, government bodies weighed in with their efforts to combat road accidents. Representatives of Egyptian ambulances held a simplified first aid crash course as a demo to the children members of the Maadi Library. “We target college students and school children to promote road safety awareness and first aid, “ explained Dr Amr Rashid, head of the air- ambulance. Rashid said that Egyptian Ambulance joined NRSC in 2008. However, things were different back then. “There were no accurate statistics on road safety, however, now the NRSC members managed to gather much more accurate statistics as well as collaborate much more with members of civil society,” he added. According to Rashid, the number of ambulance vehicles increased from some 2,000 cars in 2010 to 3,000 in 2013 nationwide. In retrospect, ever since its establishment, NRSC joined efforts with WHO, the Ministry of Interior, that of Health and Population (MOHP), housing and the rest of the concerned stake holders to put global plans into action. According to WHO, procurement and installation of 24 speed and left lane cameras in the ring road — a first in the Middle East — is one of their achievements. Capacity building with MOHP and WHO to develop injury surveillance and vital registration systems and crash data reporting systems are yet other benchmarks. But are such efforts enough to raise awareness and promote safe roads for all? To young Aya Ahmed, it's not quite so. “How do you think we can enforce such changes in people's attitudes post-revolution and with no policemen on the streets. It's very difficult.” “We need someone to monitor such conduct.”
