Despite the nation’s roads becoming more dangerous each year and the number of road accidents increasing, the popularity of motorcycle safety helmets remains dismally low, according to a Ministry of Health survey.
Ministry of Health Secretary of State Eng Huot said on Wednesday that a recent survey indicates that only 11.2 percent of motorcycle riders wear helmets. Eng Huot also noted that in 80 percent of all traffic accidents, the people involved injured their heads.
Eng Huot was speaking to more than 100 representatives from hospitals, government ministries and NGOs who attended a seminar in Phnom Penh on road traffic accidents. According to Eng Huot, 20 teams collecting data from more than 36,737 motorbike drivers carried out the survey on helmet use.
Cost may be the hindering factor to making helmets more popular, said road safety education manager for Handicap International Sann Socheata.
“The cheapest helmets [on the market] cost seven dollars and many Cambodians cannot afford to spend that kind of money,” Sann Socheata said in an interview.
To lower the price Sann Socheata called on the government to encourage local companies and NGOs to start producing helmets in Cambodia. Locally manufactured helmets had greatly reduced prices in Vietnam, she said.
Though helmet use is still low, compared to prior surveys the number of Cambodian drivers wearing a helmet has increased from around 8 percent in 2004 to the current 11.2 percent since, said WHO program officer Pamela Messervy.
“We see a slow change of behavior,” she said. “People are beginning to use helmets.”
According to government figures, traffic accidents cost Cambodia an estimated $116 million in 2003, a figure equal to three percent of the country’s GDP.
A 2002 draft law designed to ban driving without a safety helmet was prepared. However, ratification of the law was bogged down in the yearlong political standoff following the 2003 general elections and was never passed by the National Assembly.
