Improving Road Safety with Retired NTSB Chairman, Robert Sumwalt

There's a real need to improve road safety in Ghana and Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, says Eric Nyame-Baafi, a road safety consultant for the Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety in Ghana. 

“A total of 650 people die on African roads every day. A child in Africa is twice as likely to die on the road as a child in any other part of the world.”

In this latest episode of Global Road Safety, Eric discusses Ghana’s initiatives to improve railway and road safety:

“The Government of Ghana is keen in rehabilitating existing railway lines in order for some of the traffic on the road to shift to rail and in doing that is going to reduce the number of accidents,”

And explains why public education is badly needed to improve driver behavior and road safety in Ghana:

“Even though drivers recognize the need for Road Safety Education, I think the education has to be geared towards changing the behavior patterns, I mean, in terms of speeding, and in terms of drunk driving.”

Improving road safety in Ghana would improve the lives of millions of people; and that means focusing on engineering, enforcement and education. To find out more, download and listen to Eric on this latest episode now. 

On today’s podcast:

• How Ghana’s government is shifting traffic from road to rail
• Why Ghana plans to establish a transportation regulatory body
• Initiatives to improve driver skills
• Why improving road safety will improve the lives of millions

Every year in Pakistan around 30,000 people die in road accidents. Why, in the world’s fifth largest country, would they have such a high rate of road safety incidents?

“If we discuss the major road safety issues in Pakistan, the problem is unfortunately, still we do not have any road safety lead agency in Pakistan.”

Dr Muhammed Navid Tahir is incredibly passionate about making Pakistan's roads safer. As an assistant professor of Public Health at the University of Punjab, he's also done work drafting Pakistan's national road safety policy guidelines, with a special focus on motorcycle safety, pedestrian safety, and the five pillars of road safety.  

Dr Tahir truly faces an uphill struggle to improve road safety in Pakistan. Not only do drivers largely not follow the rules of the road, but Pakistan also doesn’t identify this lack of road safety as a public health issue, therefore there is no political support to make improvements. Plus, less than 10% of motorcyclists wear a helmet. 

“The lack of awareness is a big issue. And it's very difficult to actually modify the behavior and train the people in this area, because people actually are not very educated about road safety, and they are mostly impatient on the road.”

To find out more about the work Dr Tahir is doing to help keep Pakistan’s roads safer, download and listen today. 

On today’s podcast:

• The Road Safety Act
• 70% of Pakistan’s road traffic are motorbikes
• Introducing the vehicle inspection system
• Difficulty of educating the population
• Less than 10% of motorcyclists wear helmets

Links:

• Global Road Safety Facility

Every day, roughly 100 people in the United States are killed in road crashes. Globally, that number is approximately Ten to 15% of those deaths are directly attributable to distracted driving. 

Driving distracted increases the chances of a motor vehicle crash by at least 23 times. Statistically, distracted driving is as dangerous as driving while impaired by drugs or alcohol. 

So, what is being done to tackle distracted driving?

In this latest episode of Global Road Safety, we’re joined by two special guests: Paul Ripley, founder of Distraction 999 and the 2020 winner of the Prince Michael of Kent Special Road Safety Award:

“A lack of skill is the problem. Youngsters’ attitude is 25% of the safety equation, but it's never spoken about, it's never mentioned. So this is why I've gone into the attitudinal stuff and studied that for 28 years. This is the golden nugget of driver safety — it's a mindset, not necessarily a skill set.” Paul Ripley 

Ted Chen, entrepreneur, and co-founder of LifeSaver Mobile, a company offering a fleet safety solution focused on preventing distracted driving and speeding shares his thoughts on distracted driving.

“Science tells us that our brains are programmed by this chemical called dopamine to be addicted to the smartphone. Smartphones have provided us with a virtually unlimited supply of social stimuli, both positive and negative.” Ted Chen

To find out how we can all tackle distracted driving and keep our roads safer, download and listen today. 

On today’s podcast:

• The lack of skill in driving
• A lackadaisical attitude towards safety
• The effect of the pandemic on the quality of driving
• How phone usage increases the risk of a crash by 23%

Links:

• https://lifesaver-app.com/
• www.distraction999.com

With safer vehicle designed driver assistance, technology and mountains of data available from monitoring devices, why is it that vehicle crashes and deaths continue to rise? 

With the decades of research, public awareness and marketing that has happened around the world with regards to impaired driving, there's data to suggest that 45 to 50% of all fatal crashes involve a driver under the influence of one or more substances. 

“When we look at drugs, people may not be aware or perceive that they've got a negative performance impact on their driving… they just are unaware of the fact that they are impaired, they think that they've got it and they express a level of confidence.”

Given the pace at which cannabis legalisation and use is growing, we spoke with Dr. Timothy Brown, research scientist and director of drug driving research at the University of Iowa College of Engineering, about the impact of cannabis and other drugs on impaired driving. 

He shares how he became involved in drug driving research, the groundbreaking antihistamine research in the 90s, why it’s complicated to say how much cannabis makes you impaired, at what point does a drug require a driving study from the FDA for approval, and why we aren’t identifying impaired driving as a significant contributor to the upward trends in crash statistics.

“If we can't document what the problem is, then people believe there's not a problem. That’s the challenge. Distraction wasn't an issue until we started getting stats that showed that there were concerns [about] an increase in folks who were using their cell phones and getting involved in crashes.”

To find out more about how we can keep our roads safer, download and listen today. 

On today’s podcast:

• How he got into drug driving research
• Antihistamine research in the 90s
• The risk of using cannabis and driving
• Why it’s tough to say how much cannabis makes you impaired
• The challenge of prescription meds and driving

Links:

• National Academies Of Sciences Research Board On Impairment In Transportation
• ICADTS

With highway fatalities up by 8% compared to the same period in a non pandemic time, whereas vehicle miles travelled has come down, here to discuss what we can be doing as individuals, as companies, as a society, to combat these alarming trends, is Robert Sumwalt, retired NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) Chairman. 

“The NTSB is a federal agency charged by Congress to investigate transportation accidents, to determine the probable cause, and issue safety recommendations to keep those accidents and crashes from happening.”

How external influences, i.e. handheld mobile devices, PDAs etc are distracting drivers and causing crashes, what teen driver safety initiatives parents can implement to improve the chances of a teen driving safely, the noteworthy trends in road safety that are alarming Robert, his thoughts on driverless cars and why they will have a profound effect on improving safety and improving efficiency on the roadways, and his sobering words around the human toll from transportation accidents: 

“Part of my responsibilities as chairman of the board, before we go into a board meeting to deliberate a particular accident or crash is to meet with family members within hours of the tragedy, their emotions still raw. And one thing that I take away is that life is so precious, and we see how easily it can be snuffed out.”

Don’t miss Robert Sumwalt on this episode of Global Road Safety.

On today’s podcast:

• The mission of the NTSB
• How human factors influence driving accidents
• Teen driver safety initiatives
• Why highway fatalities are up 8%
• Why driverless cars will improve safety
• The human toll of transportation accidents 

Links:

• NTSB

Despite the prevalence of safer vehicle design, driver assistance technology, and a huge wealth of data available from monitoring devices, vehicle crash and death rates continue to rise. With more deaths, more injuries and billions of dollars in annual costs, what can drivers — and the companies that hire them — do to keep our roads safer? 

Joining Tony Douglas, President and CEO of Smith System, for this episode of Global Road Safety are two special guests: visual sports scientist and coach, Dr. Sherylle Calder, aka The Eye Coach: 

“We work with very big insurance companies, one specific company within six months of all the clients getting access to EyeGym, we brought down the loss ratio in claims between 20 and 25%, which is simply explained by less accidents, less claims, etc.”

And MD of Driver Bureau South Africa, Andrew Crickmay, who guides us through his success in implementing Dr. Calder's visual training techniques into commercial driving applications.

Listen as Dr. Calder shares her research with listeners: from discovering that if you use your eyes, your brain, and your body in a certain way, you can impact performance, to becoming a visual analysis coach, to how everyone (not just elite athletes) can benefit from eye training: 

“EyeGym has an application for every walk of life and to every individual. So we work with kids from six years old. And we worked with an old guy of 96 a couple of months ago, because he wanted to redo his driver's license.”

We then hear from Andrew who has implemented Dr. Calder's Eye Gym training techniques into commercial driving and heavy equipment operation applications in South Africa:

“We find very similar results to Dr. Calder, we see performance improvements of anything between 28 - 55% when we train the drivers on this process.”

On today’s podcast:

• Becoming a visual analysis coach
• How EyeGym improves visual skills
• Why professional drivers need EyeGym
• How we’re abusing our eyes with digital devices
• The impact of COVID on drivers
• The challenge of connecting CEOs with the source of risk

Links:

• EyeGym
• Driver Bureau

Introducing Global Road Safety, launching Q3 2021.

For more information, visit http://www.drivedifferent.com