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Kerala has serious road safety problems different from most industrialised nations and the State must develop its own solutions to solve them, according to Road Safety research spet Dale Andrea.

Addressing a seminar on "Partnership between road safety research and practice" organised as part of Kerala State Transport Project's Road Safety Action Plan Project in association with National Transportation Planning and Research Centre (Natpac) at Sastra Bhavan here on Friday, Dr. Andrea said those concerned would not be able to develop solutions without reliable and detailed crash information and robust and systematic research programmes.

The approaches and systematic methods are readily applicable in Kerala. It is critical that practitioners understand the value of research and researchers understand the problems for which practitioners seek solutions. Accurate and reliable data is critical to research.

Citing the Victorian experience, he said Victoria has become leader in road safety internationally and nationally by introducing many road safety firsts such as compulsory wearing of seat belts, random breath tests for alcohol, bicycle helmets and random roadside drug testing, he added.

Head of the Research Division of Natpac Mahesh Chand has called for a new evidence-based approach for road safety. He said Natpac has prepared a road safety research vision. The road safety research should lead to cost effective road safety solutions and should benefit all segments of road users and geographical area.

Besides, Dr. Chand said the road safety research should result in lower incidence of accidents, minimise the impact of accidents and cover wider aspects of road safety including insurance, compensation and rehabilitation. Eight thrust areas such as accident database, road and traffic related, vehicle and human related have also been identified.

Additional Director-General of Police, Jacob Punnose said research should be undertaken on why accidents and deaths came down in the State during 1996, 1997 and 1998 and why accidents resulting in major injuries are going up while deaths and injuries in road accidents are coming down. Team leader of the project, Jim Jarvis, T. Elangovan of Natpac, former chairman of the Railway Board, M. N. Prasad and Kuncheria P. Isaac of CET, were among those who participated.