Material for a 3-hour lesson, part of the Training Course on Community Safety Awareness Raising Programme, developed by the OSCE Mission in Kosovo for the Kosovo Police
The rapid growth of traffic, and of the road traffic in particular, due to a lasting increase of the vehicle and driver numbers has led to a greater level of danger in traffic safety and an ever-increasing number of road traffic accidents with great material damages, injuries, even fatalities at times.
This is a phenomenon that is affecting all countries throughout the globe at a different scale, depending on several factors such as economic development, culture, education, road infrastructure etc. However, no country in the world has been spared from the dire consequences of traffic accidents, even our country.
As mentioned above, the frequency of traffic accidents and of consequences there from depends on several factors, such as the economic, cultural and educational development. Rapid economic growth in developed country has without doubts led to an increase in the vehicle numbers and, therefore, an increase in the number of road traffic accidents and risk factors contributing to them respectively.
Notwithstanding the smaller number of vehicles, a significant share of road traffic accidents occurs in less economically developed countries, with the main risk factors being attributed to poorer cultural and education levels, poor road infrastructure networks unable to accommodate the vehicular volume, as well as other factors with an adverse impact in the overall traffic safety.
Due to a rapid growth in the vehicle numbers, particularly as at the end of the war in June 1999, and the extremely high import of vehicles from abroad, our country too marked a continuous increase in the intensity of traffic volume resulting in a continuous increase in the number of traffic accidents.
The aim of this lesson is to provide the course participants with knowledge on road traffic safety, factors that have the greatest impact on traffic safety, namely in the reduction of the number of traffic accidents involving pedestrians.
At the end of this lesson, the participants will have gained an enhanced knowledge on road traffic safety:
1. Identify the three (3) key road traffic safety factors;
2. Pedestrian traffic flow;
3. General road traffic rules;
4. Signals provided by authorized official persons (AOP);
5. Signals given through a whistle;
6. Traffic signs.