Helmets the focus of road safety week

SEVENTY-EIGHT per cent of the motorcyclists who have died since the beginning of 2010 were not wearing a helmet, according to Demetris Demetriou, director of the Traffic Police Department.

During the same period 2,000 fines were issued to those not wearing a helmet, he told a press conference yesterday to launch the 11th annual Road Safety Week, in the presence of the Minister of Justice Loucas Louca.

Louca said that road accidents were a social plague, and that road safety is everyone’s business. “For us to decrease the number of road accidents, cultivating a solid road safety consciousness is of undisputable importance,” Loucas said.

This year’s campaign entitled “Road Safety is not a Fairytale” is partially directed towards primary school children.

According to Demetriou, the week’s aim is “to sensitise the public and more specifically to educate children”.

“We are investing a lot in children because we want to create conscientious drivers for the future,” Demetriou added.

Yesterday also saw the beginning of a campaign to monitor motorbikes outside schools. “Many secondary and technical school students use motorbikes to arrive and depart from schools, without having a licence and without wearing a helmet,” Demetriou explained.

The campaign will last until September 26.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.