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Journal Article

Citation

Geokas MC, Papanicolaou S. J. Traffic Med. 2001; 29(1-2): 6-8.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2001, International Association for Accident and Traffic Medicine)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The bloodshed on asphalt in Greece should be given top priority as an issue of the highest significance for the Nation. Drastic measures are necessary in order to reduce the number of deaths and permanent disabilities in Greece, a demographically weak country. The Olympic Games of 2004 with the anticipated influx of huge numbers of Athletes and Tourists, have already transformed the need for strict Traffic Control, into an urgent matter. Even one deadly car crush, with victims foreign Athletes or Tourists, who might visit ancient Olympia in the Peloponnese, will amount to a big catastrophe for Greece, in the eyes of the whole world. The significant and determined improvement of driving habits and of all other aspects related to traffic control, with the assistance of foreign experts, should be a National goal of the highest priority. Recent research has shown that many automobile crashes are due to a cumulative sleep deficit for people who do not get enough sleep, day after day (New Wellness Encyclopedia 1995). Furthermore the physical and mental tiredness from the infuriating and rich in exhaust-gasses life in Athens, together with alcohol consumption, and the cultural idiosyncrasies, plus the obsolete secondary road network in the provinces, explain quite adequately the bloodshed of Easter 2000. A study by the WHO, Harvard University and the World Bank (World Bank Group 2000) has shown, that during the next 10 years and in the absence of strong measures, there will be 6 million dead and 60 million injured from automobile accidents mainly in third world nations. Statistically useful data are given in the form of deaths per 10,000 vehicles. Norway and Sweden have very few deaths, Greece is ahead of Italy, Spain and Portugal, whereas Ethiopia and Rwanda have the highest numbers (see Table 1). From the 1.7 million deaths and 10 million disabled, reported worldwide per year, 70 per cent are in third world countries, 65 per cent of them are pedestrians and 35 per cent of pedestrians are children. Greece urgently needs draconian measures because the traffic situation is as grim as it can possibly be. This is perhaps the revenge of Technology, as described by Edward Tenner in his 1997 book entitled: Why the Things Bite Back, Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences. Indeed, the automobile is a marvelous product of technology, but it bites back with a vengeance, becoming instantly an instrument of death or injury, when driving in a bad road, and when the driver is flippant, egocentric, sleepy, half-drunk, or is speeding or is talking in his cellular phone, ....sometimes through a satellite.

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