Easter holidays 2023: road safety must be everyone’s business

This Saturday, 1st April 2023, as the great migration of schoolchildren and students begins for their second term holidays, culminating in the Easter celebrations, transport operators are rubbing their hands with pleasure at the thought of the huge profit that this peak period will bring. Nothing could be more normal, you might say, because business is all about seizing opportunities.

However, where the problem lies is when the desire to make profit pushes these operators to flout and override the most basic common sense and the most vital security measures. Overloading becomes the norm, as passenger transport operators compete to fill their vehicles with more passengers than they have space for, not to mention the appalling violations of the Highway Code, which in turn are very often far in excess of other technical specifications.

Nonetheless, the greatest threat to road user safety is much subtler: human fatigue. How could it be otherwise when drivers are forced to do several trips, sacrificing the rest periods that are so beneficial for regaining physical and mental energy? No matter how many litres of beer you drink, how many kola nuts you chew or how many psychotropic drugs you take, nothing helps. The tiredness, which is always suppressed, comes back even stronger, sometimes invigorating, always disconcerting.

Giving the body the moment of rejuvenation it needs is the only way to put an end to this conflict between the temptation of profit and the need for rest, a conflict that would otherwise be exacerbated with the loss of human life and material and financial damage that is not proportional but exponential to the degree of recklessness of the road users that we all are.

If our roads must cease to be death traps, then road safety, our safety, must be everyone’s business!!!

Let us remain vigilant. /-