Road safety summit set in Ilocos

April 28, 2018 Provincial

SAN FERNANDO CITY – To create a doable agreement and commitment to prevent vehicular traffic incidents along the Manila North Road traversing the provinces in Ilocos region, a forum is set on April 30 here.
Chief Superintendent Romulo L. Sapitula, the regional director of Police Regional Office 1 (PRO 1), initiated the conduct of the regional road safety summit in collaboration with the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the members of the Technical Working Group (TWG) on prevention of vehicular traffic incidents.
“We realized this summit to gather all concerned sectors in the region for the making of the holistic approaches to address the problem on vehicular traffic incidents particularly on vehicular accidents and vehicles stoning incidents,” said Sapitula.
Expected to attend the summit are at least 155 representatives from the local transport groups and motorcycle clubs, concerned local government units (LGUs) along the Manila North Road, traffic aides/auxiliaries group and bus owners and managers.
The provincial government of La Union headed by Governor Francisco Emmanuel “Pacoy” R. Ortega III will host the summit, which is set at the Diego Silang Hall of the provincial capitol, with Ilocos Norte Governor Imee Marcos, the chairperson of the Regional Peace and Order Council (RPOC), as the keynote speaker.
Among the topics during the forum are the traffic rules and regulations; the franchising of vehicles; situationers of the Manila North Road including road obstructions and signage of construction, road safety tips (displinadong driver) and the vehicular traffic incidents data from 2015 to present.
Although the trend on the occurrence of vehicular traffic incidents in the region was decreasing from 2015 to 2017, Sapitula said that the occurrence of vehicular traffic incidents in the Ilocos region remain alarming due to many deaths it caused.
The recorded vehicular traffic incidents in Region 1 in 2015 was 15,442 while 13,802 in 2017. The vehicular traffic incidents represented almost 50 percent of the annual crime volume in the Ilocos region. From 2015 to 2017, the Region 1 police office had recorded at least 1,400 fatalities due to vehicular accidents.
The latest tragic vehicular accident in Region 1 happened in Barangay San Jose Sur, Agoo, La Union on December 25, 2017, that resulted to the death of 20 persons and injuring at least 15 individuals.
“We are also intensifying our monitoring operations along the Manila North Road to arrest those residents involved in vehicles stoning incident, which was rampant in the past few months,” Sapitula added.
Based on initial findings, the causes of vehicular traffic incident in Region 1 are overspeeding; traffic illiteracy; reckless driving; poor vehicle condition; poor road condition; driving while under the influence of liquor; use of bicycles and tractors and other agricultural machineries in the highways; and road obstruction due to unmanned/abandoned barricades of highways; use of highways for drying palay or corn, abused use of streets during festivities and road works and repairs.
“After the summit, we will formulate a memorandum of agreement or commitment from the stakeholders and concerned sectors that will look for solutions to the problem on vehicular traffic accidents, and will ensure road safety and security,” he added. FREDDIE G. LAZARO, PIA-1 / ABN