At the conference on June 19 to review the implementation of the 'Slow Zones, Safe Zones' project (Photo: VNA) Gia Lai (VNA) – Traffic safety around schools in Pleiku city in the CentralHighlands province of Gia Lai has improved remarkably thanks to a two-year projectentitled ‘Slow Zones, Safe Zones’.
The GiaLai’s Traffic Safety Committee and the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation (AIPFoundation) held a conference on June 19 to review the implementation of the project,the first designed specifically for traffic safety around schools in Vietnam.
Toprevent and reduce traffic deaths and injuries in school zones, the project added modifications to roads around schools like speedbumps, road markings, speed reduction signs, and sidewalks.
It alsocompiled e-curriculum to present traffic safety regulations to elementaryschool students and held educational activities to raise public awareness.
After one year, ‘Slow Zones, Safe Zones’ has contributed to ensuretraffic safety, said Nguyen Thi Nga, principal of Phan Dang Luu elementary school,one of the two schools benefiting from the project.
In Pleiku, schools are often located along nationaland provincial roads and there are no safety parameters in place to protectpedestrians, namely schoolchildren commuting to and from school.
Besides, the speed limits for these roads are ratherhigh at a minimum of 50km per hour.
Trinh Thu Ha, deputy chief of the secretariat of the NationalTraffic Safety Committee said speed reduction in school zones will lowercasualties when accidents occur and help children gain awareness of trafficsafety.
According to statistics, childtraffic accident fatality rate of Vietnam was about 20 deaths per 100,000children, while the figure was 7.4 deaths per 100,000 children in South EastAsia and 4.2 deaths per 100,000 children in developed nations.
In the first five months of this year, there were morethan 6,700 traffic accidents nationwide, killing over 3,100 and injuring 5,200others – down 9.49 percent in the number of cases, 10 percent in mortalities,and 8 percent in the number of the wounded.-VNA
