Press Release
October 11, 2016

Koko calls for road safety review

Senate President Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III is calling for a Senate inquiry on the rising number of vehicular accidents in the country.

Under Senate Resolution 190, filed on Tuesday, October 5, Pimentel wants the Senate Committee on Public Services to conduct an inquiry in aid of legislation on existing road and traffic safety rules and regulations to determine measures that can be enacted to reduce the number of these incidents.

In the text of the resolution, Pimentel noted that in the 2015 statistics of the Philippine National Police (PNP) Highway Patrol Group (HPG), a total of 24,565 incidents of vehicular accidents were recorded nationwide, and fatalities were recorded in 1,040 of these incidents.

Koko added that in the first four months of 2016 alone, the PNP-HPG already recorded 549 deaths based on the initial 10,656 tally of vehicular accidents.

Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) in 2015 was able to record a total of 95,615 incidents resulting in 418 casualties in the National Capital Region (NCR) alone.

According to the MMDA, 99.95 percent of those accidents can be attributed to human error, such as "bad turning, bad overtaking, overspeeding, drunk driving, distracted driving, or the use of mobile phone while on the wheel, overloading, as well as avoiding animals, pedestrians, and other road hazards."

Pimentel said that the rise in the frequency of vehicular accidents "highlights the pressing need to reassess current road safety rules and regulations and to initiate appropriate legislation to curb the significant number of injuries and casualties caused by non-compliance with traffic and road safety rules and regulations."

Pimentel said that since most of the reported accidents were attributed to human error, one possible solution that can be applied is citizen education, including schoolchildren, to give them the necessary education and training to minimize road accidents.

He is hoping that by the end of the inquiry, the Senate will be able to come up with measures to provide stricter regulations on road safety in the country.

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