The National Road Safety Educational Programme for National Guardsmen begins on Thursday, in the light of statistics that young people, especially young men, are a high risk category in road safety and make up a significant percentage in serious and fatal road accidents.
The statistics were presented at a press conference to mark the launching of the programme, titled “Phaethon – Tasos Mitsopoulos 2015”. According to the figures, from 2007 till 2014, there were 513 fatalities in road accidents, with 411 or 80.2% being men.
Furthermore, there were 114 fatalities under the age of 25, with 93 or 81.6% being men. In 2013, the percentage for this age group escalated to 94%.
Speaking at the press conference, Minister of Transport, Communications and Works Marios Demetriades said that Cyprus was facing a serious problem as regards road accidents, noting that in 2014 there were 45 fatalities in road accidents, with 14 being young men up to the age of 25.
Demetriades pointed out that most of the time accidents were due to human error and thus it was necessary to improve the behaviour of Cypriots on the road.
Marios Stavrou, President of REACTION – Youth for the Prevention and Vice-President of the European Youth Forum for Road Safety, said prevention from a young age was catalytic to reducing road accidents, adding that REACTION, in cooperation with educational institutions abroad, had created an additional programme, which included training, simulators and experiments, to be incorporated in “Phaethon”.
The programme “Phaethon – Tasos Mitsopoulos” is implemented by REACTION in all National Guard units across the island, and comprises best practices from Cyprus and abroad in road safety
