Road safety advocates in Yangon today rolled out the first of several events this week whose aim is to bring the often-ignored issue of dangerous driving into the broader public consciousness.
The campaign is timed to the start of the Third UN Global Road Safety Week, a period in which governments all over the world raise awareness about the growing problem of increasingly unsafe highways and streets.
Road safety is a genuine crisis in many parts of the developing world, where kids under 18 are three times as likely to die in a crash than their peers in developed economies, according to the UN.
Thit Lwin, one of the event organizers, said that an average of 11.4 deaths occur on Myanmar’s roads every day, while 680 people sustain injuries.
After organizers unveiled an illustrated road safety banner a the Yangon City Development Committee early this morning, they are holding a forum for the rest of the day into tomorrow.
Starting on Friday, there’s a three-day “exhibition” about road safety at People’s Park in Yangon, which will wrap up with a planned walkathon.
