News
One in five accident victims from three-wheeler crashes
One in five patients treated at the National Hospital last year for road accidents were victims of three-wheeler drivers, the hospital said, amid concern at the toll of death and injury from such vehicles. 
On Tuesday, four Air Force personnel from the Ratmalana base were killed when the three-wheeler in which they were travelling collided with a container lorry on the Colombo-Kandy road at Demmaladeniya in Warakapola.
Both vehicles had been travelling at high speed and the three-wheeler driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and skidded into the opposite lane, Warakapola police said. The lorry driver is out on bail.
The incident reinforces a transport expert’s accusation that the authorities were turning a blind eye to the limitations of three-wheelers.
“Three-wheelers are not designed to travel on highways or used for long-distance travelling as they cannot manoeuvre quickly and hence are not traffic-friendly vehicles,” Senior Professor Amal Kumarage of the University of Moratuwa’s Department of Transport and Logistics said.
Despite constant calls for action on three-wheeler safety, accidents involving these vehicles decreased by less than 1 per cent between 2018 and 2019, traffic statistics show.
“The rising number of three-wheeler accidents has been a menace to the general public and the safety of the passengers are at risk,” Deputy Inspector-General of Police (Traffic) Muditha Pussella said.
“We are the body involved in enforcement, but what about the functioning of the other two factors – engineering and education? This can’t be a blame game. The relevant authorities must work together and help reduce the number of accidents,” he said.
DIG Pussella emphasised that attention to road conditions and roadworthy vehicles was as important as enforcement of road rules.
While conceding that speeding and overloading three-wheelers with passengers were the main causes of accidents the head of the All-Island Three-Wheeler Drivers Union, Lalith Dharmasekara, claimed professional drivers committed few errors and many accidents were caused by privately-owned three-wheelers.
| Road safety agencies need muscles, teeth: A-G | |
| Road safety agencies cannot perform capably because they are poorly resourced, with the Road Development Authority (RDA) even unable to carry out its safety audit for two years due to a lack of engineers. This is one of several worrying findings in a just-published report on road safety in 2016-17 released by the Auditor-General.  A recent accident in Dambulla. Pic by Kanchana Kumara Ariyadasa It comes, ironically, as the new year marks the end of a so-called decade of action for road safety – a United Nations declaration signed by Sri Lanka. The powers and physical and human resources available to the National Council for Road Safety (NCRS) are insufficient, the Auditor-General’s report, released last month, says. Although the NCRS had the duty of establishing a database of road accidents a traffic police database is not linked to the council, the Department of Motor Traffic, the Ministry of Health or insurance companies, the report points out. Trained engineers were not available at present in the RDA, which meant the authority had not been able to carry out a road safety audit for 2016-17. The lack of engineers meant that road engineering faults that had caused numerous accidents had not been rectified. Lack of personnel meant there was insufficient checking of the running condition of school vans, inadequate lighting systems on the A1, A8 and A33 roads, and no fixing of unprotected railway crossings. There were too few people to attend to the cancellation of registrations of vehicles no longer in use, or to renew approval for vehicles that had previously been identified as unfit for the roads but where defects had since been rectified. In the case of accidents, there were inadequate resources or personnel required to deal with accident victims, and substandard ambulance facilities, the Auditor-General said. The report quotes recommendations made by a parliamentary special committee report on the alarming rise in road accidents. The committee said the NCRS should conduct research and field inspections on road safety and accidents to find solutions and that a training unit be set up in Traffic Police Headquarters bring about higher standards of traffic law enforcement and accident investigation. It was observed that 72 per cent of the police officers attached to the Traffic Division had not followed the Traffic Management course. The Auditor-General’s report says a corridor must be included in any highway construction plan to accommodate electricity, telephone and water supply service lines. Existing power, telephone and water supply lines should be removed and new ones laid underground or parallel to the roads, especially in urban areas. Information obtained from police revealed that there were 109 sites around the country where badly-placed electricity and telephone poles had created at least 14 accidents. The report said police should be equipped with fast highway patrol cars, motorcycles with radio communication equipment, equipment for drink-driving tests and cameras to catch offenders in the act of violating traffic laws. Pointing to the high number of accidents involving private vehicles carrying schoolchildren, the report stated that police bore responsibility for providing security for schoolchildren on the roads. The Ministry of Health was drawn into the Auditor-General’s report with criticism made of the inadequacy of shock treatment, orthopedic, neurosurgery and blood bank facilities in hospitals for road accident victims. There should be more doctors and nurses recruited to attend to victims, the report said. |