Feature: Laos drives home pertinent road safety message from int'l conference

War in Syria and global terrorism, an uneven world economy and threats from a rapidly changing climate are foremost among the many competing priorities and human security risks on the minds of the world's political elites and experts alike at a host of international conferences as 2015 draws to its close.

Meanwhile, victims of another common yet tragic killer are hoping to capture what they can of international attention and direct it to the deaths caused by danger found daily on a familiar battlefield - the world's roads.

Delegations from multiple continents are meeting Wednesday and Thursday in the capital of South America's most populous country Brazil for the 2nd Global High Level Conference on Road Safety, a two-day international symposium aiming to keep traffic safety efforts on the agenda at a time when there are no shortage of priorities calling for policymakers' attention.

The statistics back the call. Road traffic-related accidents are responsible for the deaths of more than 1.25 million people each year worldwide.

While such deaths are said to be plateauing when global population growth is taken into account, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has called for a much more radical target of reducing road traffic deaths and injuries by half worldwide.

The call comes as the roads' death toll and associated injuries and impact continues to be widespread, if shared unevenly among generations and the global community of nations.

When it comes to the premature loss of young people and their many years of future potential, no other killer comes close.

Road deaths exceed both suicide and HIV/AIDS as the leading killer of people aged 19-29 worldwide.

And whether young or old, it is the drivers and passengers, cyclists and pedestrians in low and middle income countries that typically confront the greatest risks on the roads in the form of accidents, responsible for losses of life and economic activity of up to 5 percent of developing nations' GDP.

Such tales are being told in Laos, a landlocked Southeast Asian nation of some 7 million with a young population taking to roads increasingly interlinked with its more populous and developed neighbors China, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia.

Now a contingent from the country's National Road Safety Committee is in Brasilia, carrying with them the voices of the increasing number of compatriots whose lives have been forever altered by injury or the loss of loved ones to traffic accidents.

On Lao roads daily, inexperienced and undertrained drivers face safety conditions that lag well behind Europe, home to the world's safest places to drive.

As across developing Southeast Asia, increasing motor vehicle use and urbanization have come hand in hand with growing material prosperity thanks to socio-economic development on the back of development owing to increased investment and cross-border trade.

Among the most visible signs of this trend is the profusion of motor vehicles on the country's roadways, in the country's provinces and most obviously in the urban areas of the country's capital Vientiane.

Lao roads are increasingly populated by well-known makes of late model 4WD pickups and SUVs, with chassis raised well above the surface of the countries roadways whose surface condition ranges widely from decent to sub-standard and most points in between.

Concrete-carrying trucks and construction vehicles serving the booming city's needs continue to kick up a sea of dust or splatter mud alternatively, while motoring before them the still numerous hordes of popular and affordable 110cc motorbikes that until recently had a fairly free run of most roads.

From those well-surfaced roads to the invariably potholed smaller thoroughfares, rapidly increasing vehicle usage and changing makeup of traffic on Lao roads is greatly challenging both social and physical infrastructure of the kind required to deal with the implications.

Driver education and licensing, intoxication, rule enforcement, urban transport design and emergency medical treatment for road accident victims, are just some of the areas with long lists of costly priorities posed via policymakers, partner agencies and traffic police alike.

Meanwhile, volunteer rescue services run on near empty tanks with insecure funding and donated vehicles from abroad, have to scrape money together for power bills, medical supplies and the fuel to provide an essential service attending to the dead and injured by the roadside and ferrying survivors to hospitals wherever possible.

These are all factors that saw 668 officially recorded road fatalities in Laos in the first eight months of 2015.

It is believed a significant number of accidents in rural and remote areas go unrecorded rendering reported figures an underestimation of the true extent of traffic accidents and related fatalities.

An actual fatality rate of 19 per 10,000 vehicles, double the average in Southesst Asia and nearly ten times that of the United States, was revealed in research by the Asian Development Bank published in 2011.

These disturbing facts explain the sombre yet determined mood at a gathering held to mark the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims in the city Sunday morning.

Held at Patouxay, the Lao national victory monument so aptly sitting at the centre of an island surrounded by the capital's fine central Lane Xang Avenue, the event saw representatives of two organizations plus the Vientiane Capital Traffic Police and the nation's Road Crash Prevention (RCP) joining victims in a memorial ceremony for those lost upon the nations' roads.

Taking the preventative education approach is the RCP Team, a group of volunteers who have been affected directly by the perils presented by traffic accidents.

Some members have lost family members to accidents, while others sustained serious injuries to themselves or loved ones.

The RCP team has, with the support of international NGO Handicap International, developed and published an exhibition of their testimonies.

Aiming to reach the audience most in need these stories are being shared widely including also on a Facebook page entitled "Road Crash Prevention" in both Lao and English languages

Stories include that of Anna Luanglath, who laments the lost life of her younger brother Phouthasack, hit by a drunken motorcyclist and dragged 28 meters up the road, killing him instantly.

Or Thavone Khamphankao, a young beer company employee for whom a night out in 2008 resulted in an accident with multiple injuries, a permanently unusable right arm, expensive medical bills and the loss of his employment.

Others were there to remember fortunate escapes like Nousa Sayasan, a motorbike rider who survived a collision with a car thanks solely to her helmet. The driver was using a cell phone at the time.

These tales are just some of those typical of RCP team members, intent on telling their personal stories to society, particularly to the youngsters whose future lives may well depend on heeding the lessons of those forced to learn the hard way.

The message is particularly pertinent at this time of year as the country and its capital get set to celebrate the That Luang Festival, a joyous annual religious and commercial carnival centered upon the revered golden stupa that lies at the symbolic spiritual heart of Lao cultural identity.

The event is just one of many national, local and family celebrations centered upon this time of year when the nation shrugs off the muggy embrace of the three-month monsoon and settles into drier crisper months of a mild winter before the return of blistering heat come in March.

With celebrations galore, at this time as much as any other it is an open secret that drunk-driving regulations are observed in the breach, a major concern in a country which boasts the highest rate of alcohol consumption in Southeast Asia, according to statistics collected nationally by Laos and other ASEAN member states.

Among the joyous celebrations, more than a few quiet prayers will be said for the safety of all who traverse the world's roads, that they might avoid such tragic fates and instead wake up safe and sound to celebrate many happy returns. Endit