Our road deaths are not tolerable

As Costa Rica’s Transport Minister, roads are a big part of my responsibilities. The daily life of each person depends on our roads, to get to school, to work, or to the health centre; to do business, to underpin agriculture and trade, to provide jobs so that people are lifted out of poverty.

Costa Rica's transport minister, Karla Gonzalez, calls for international support.

In developing countries like Costa Rica even simple journeys are hazardous. Half of the people killed or badly hurt in road crashes are simply walking. One in ten is killed on bicycles. The death rate of people inside vehicles is also high. Overall, a Costa Rican is more than 3 times more likely to die in a sudden violent road crash than a northern European.

This is not tolerable. Costa Rica is well known for non-violence. We abolished our army 50 years ago. Our President, Oscar Arias, is a Nobel Peace Prize winner for his work in bringing conflicts to a close in our region. So in the San Jose Declaration of last year our President used his international standing to mobilise action against the violence of road crashes in Latin America.

In Costa Rica, we look for good international advice. We are acting to tackle the key risk factors in road crashes – seat belts and helmet wearing, drunk-driving and excessive speed. In 2003, when we realised that few people wore seat belts, we changed the law on seat belt use. We created a campaign that spoke to our people in a language they could understand. We said, for the sake of people you love and for those who love you – “por amor” – wear a seat belt. And the forces of the new law and emotion worked together. The rate of seat belt usage rose from about 20% to over 80% and the death rate of people in cars fell by around 30%.

Now we are tacking another major issue: our roads.

Our roads are in a bad condition. The same rain that lures tourists to visit the beautiful wildlife and rainforests of Costa Rica, is also the same rain water that washes away our roads. For the last ten years our roads have been neglected in terms of maintenance investment. The national budget for roads is really poor.

This has been changing over the last year. For the first time the government decided to give all the resources provided by our fuel law to maintain the roads. Nevertheless the damage was so extensive that we could spend the entire budget just patching and painting the roads.

It must be difficult for those of you in developed countries to imagine the problems that our engineers face. In well-developed countries, professionals debate the different tactics to achieve the lowest whole-life treatment for roads over the next 20 or 40 years. In Costa Rica, we struggle to find the money to keep or open new roads. It is very hard to run a programme to improve the situation when money is scarce and road conditions poor. Unfortunately we believe this scenario is the same in most developing countries. But despite our circumstances, we have to change the paradigm.

If the government has the money to build new roads they certainly must take care of the safety component. It is no longer acceptable to spend scarce money to build bigger or longer roads, if we are not also investing money to make our roads safer.

Global health equity means that people everywhere – in rich countries and poor – have access to vaccines. Global road safety equity means that people everywhere have access not to roads, as we used to believe, but to safe roads, as we believe today.

On May 8th last year, as the first decision of the new Arias government, the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation, on my command, decreed we would audit our roads, both old and new, in terms of safety.

In the past, when we spent money ‘improving’ roads we often increased casualties as speeds rose because the roads were not safely designed. International institutions were short sighted too. Too many believed that tackling health, education and poverty could be done while cutting back on basics. Now everyone recognises that we need safe, clean and affordable transport. We need maintenance budgets which are sustainable.

We need simple, affordable safety features that would be expected in a developing country such as footpaths and safe crossing points; traffic calming in villages; safety fencing and safe road and junction layouts; bike paths and uphill lanes. We know that roundabouts and centre and side barriers can reduce traffic fatalities by 90%. These interventions are as effective as vaccines.

Costa Rica is one of a handful of developing countries worldwide whose roads are being inspected as part of a pilot programme by iRAP, the International Road Assessment Programme. We have launched the inspection of 2500 kilometres of road. This network is one on which deaths and serious injuries are concentrated. I expect to receive iRAP’s report and recommendations in September 2007 showing the roads in most urgent need of treatment – if money can be found.

Infrastructure is the part of the safety system where we governments have the greatest ability to save lives and prevent injuries.

On the other hand it is also the most expensive part, where major investments are required.

Let me finish with a question. Assuming political will is there to take action, are we going to find the international financial community ready to take those actions, and become part of the solution?

I suspect that so many of our countries are in the same position as Costa Rica, and with investment from the international community there is so much that we could do for so many.

Karla Gonzalez is Minister of Public Works and Transport for Costa Rica. She is an attorney and former Vice Minister for Transport. She is also Member for Latin America of the Commission for Global Road Safety. In 2004 she addressed the UN General Assembly landmark session on the Global Road Safety Crisis. This is an edited version of her speech to the 2nd UN Global Stakeholders Forum, held at the Palais des Nations, Geneva on 25th April 2007.

< Back