VOA标准英语2013--Saving Lives, Saving Money

 

Saving Lives, Saving Money

Every year, road crashes kill more than a million people around the world and injure many, many more. But a new study says deaths and injuries can be sharply reduced by taking simple safety measures. What’s more, safer roads can bring major economic benefits as well.

Dr. Margie Peden said that traffic collisions should be viewed as a health issue.

“It’s a huge public health problem. It’s a public health problem

akin¹ to those of malaria², tuberculosis³ and some other infectious diseases. It kills around 1.3 million people every year and it injures and disables somewhere between 20 and 50 million people,” she said.

Peden is coordinator⁴ for Unintentional Injury Prevention at the World Health Organization.

“I liken it to a disease because it’s often not thought of as a public health issue. Very often in countries it’s thought of as a transport issue only. Although some of the issues around prevention may be related to improving vehicles or improving the road, lots of the patients obviously end up in hospitals and they consume huge amounts of resources,” she said.

She was asked to review the study, which appears in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization.

The study describes safety measures taken between 2000 and 2010 in Catalonia, Spain, the far northeastern region that borders France.

“We were very aware that during these 10 years, from 2000 to 2010, there was an important decrease in the number of traffic crashes and deaths. So we thought, ok, just to make it more impressive and understandable for anybody, let’s translate this figure into economic terms. So people [are] aware of the money that could be saved using public health measures,” said Health economist⁵ Dr. Anna Garcia-Altes, who’s the lead author.

Dr. Garcia-Altes, who works for the Catalan Agency for Health Information, Assessment⁶ and Quality in Barcelona, outlined the economic benefits of road safety in Catalonia.

“First, if people [are] less injured they go less to the hospital, right? So there’s an immediate⁷ impact because people don’t use the emergency room, hospital admissions, rehabilitation⁸, long-term care, etcetera. The second thing is if people [are] not injured they can go to work. And finally we were estimating that in this 10-year period there were 3000 less deaths due to car accidents. So this has also an economic impact,” she said.

The safety measures that were strictly⁹ enforced include seatbelt usage, speed limits, drunk driving laws and a penalty point system for repeat offenders¹⁰ that could result in the loss of drivers’ licenses¹¹.

Dr. Garcia-Altes said that she’s been contacted by European and U.N. officials, who are interested in the safety program.

WHO’s Dr. Margie Peden described the Spanish study as “an important piece of work, as there are few economic evaluations¹² of road safety policies.”

She said that poor data collection makes it difficult to have an official list of regions where road traffic deaths are the worst. Nevertheless, the information that is available indicates North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and the eastern Mediterranean¹³ regions fall into that category.

Peden said that there needs to be new thinking about road safety.

“Unfortunately, for many, many years road builders have really only thought about the car occupants and not the person outside the car. And if we look at road users globally we see that nearly 50 percent of them are actually what we call vulnerable road users. These are people that are outside the vehicle, like pedestrians¹⁴ or cyclists or motorcyclists,” she said.

The World Health Organization official would rather not use the word “accident” in safe driving campaigns.

She said, “The term ‘accident’ conjures¹⁵ up in people’s minds that this is an act of God, a fate. Something that is not preventable.”

She prefers the terms “road traffic collisions” or “road traffic crashes.”

Much attention is now being paid to “distracted driving.” One example of this is sending text messages over mobile phones while driving.

“If we look at the statistics around the world, there are a few highly sensationalized accounts of deaths related to texting. But when you actually look at the numbers you will find that there are actually very few deaths related specifically to texting, but there’s lots of minor¹⁶ collisions, fender benders, what they call lane deviations¹⁷ or people driving slowly because they’re trying to text while their driving with their knees or something,” she said.

She said that distracted driving is a problem, but recommends dealing¹⁸ with speeding, drinking and driving, not wearing seatbelts or helmets first.

We are currently in the early years of the U.N.-designated Decade of Action for Road Safety. Peden says it has the ambitious goal of trying to reduce by half the number of road traffic crashes. It may be an uphill battle. Road traffic crashes are currently predicted to rise during that time from the ninth to the fifth leading cause of death in the world.

1 akin   

adj.同族的，类似的

参考例句：

• She painted flowers and birds pictures akin to those of earlier feminine painters.她画一些同早期女画家类似的花鸟画。
• Listening to his life story is akin to reading a good adventure novel.听他的人生故事犹如阅读一本精彩的冒险小说。

2 malaria   

n.疟疾

参考例句：

• He had frequent attacks of malaria.他常患疟疾。
• Malaria is a kind of serious malady.疟疾是一种严重的疾病。

3 tuberculosis   

n.结核病，肺结核

参考例句：

• People used to go to special health spring to recover from tuberculosis.人们常去温泉疗养胜地治疗肺结核。
• Tuberculosis is a curable disease.肺结核是一种可治愈的病。

4 coordinator   

n.协调人

参考例句：

• The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, headed by the Emergency Relief Coordinator, coordinates all UN emergency relief. 联合国人道主义事务协调厅在紧急救济协调员领导下，负责协调联合国的所有紧急救济工作。
• How am I supposed to find the client-relations coordinator? 我怎么才能找到客户关系协调员的办公室？

5 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

6 assessment   

n.评价；评估；对财产的估价，被估定的金额

参考例句：

• This is a very perceptive assessment of the situation.这是一个对该情况的极富洞察力的评价。
• What is your assessment of the situation?你对时局的看法如何？

7 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

• His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
• We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。

8 rehabilitation   

n.康复，悔过自新，修复，复兴，复职，复位

参考例句：

• He's booked himself into a rehabilitation clinic.他自己联系了一家康复诊所。
• No one can really make me rehabilitation of injuries.已经没有人可以真正令我的伤康复了。

9 strictly   

adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地

参考例句：

• His doctor is dieting him strictly.他的医生严格规定他的饮食。
• The guests were seated strictly in order of precedence.客人严格按照地位高低就座。

10 offenders   

n.冒犯者( offender的名词复数 )；犯规者；罪犯；妨害…的人（或事物）

参考例句：

• Long prison sentences can be a very effective deterrent for offenders. 判处长期徒刑可对违法者起到强有力的威慑作用。
• Purposeful work is an important part of the regime for young offenders. 使从事有意义的劳动是管理少年犯的重要方法。

11 licenses   

n.执照( license的名词复数 )v.批准，许可，颁发执照( license的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Drivers have ten days' grace to renew their licenses. 驾驶员更换执照有10天的宽限期。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Jewish firms couldn't get import or export licenses or raw materials. 犹太人的企业得不到进出口许可证或原料。 来自辞典例句

12 evaluations   

估价( evaluation的名词复数 )； 赋值； 估计价值； [医学]诊断

参考例句：

• In fact, our moral evaluations are merely expressions of our desires. 事实上，我们的道德评价只是我们欲望的表达形式。 来自哲学部分
• Properly speaking, however, these evaluations and insights are not within the concept of official notice. 但准确地讲，这些评估和深远见识并未包括在官方通知概念里。

13 Mediterranean   

adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的

参考例句：

• The houses are Mediterranean in character.这些房子都属地中海风格。
• Gibraltar is the key to the Mediterranean.直布罗陀是地中海的要冲。

14 pedestrians   

n.步行者( pedestrian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Several pedestrians had come to grief on the icy pavement. 几个行人在结冰的人行道上滑倒了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Pedestrians keep to the sidewalk [footpath]! 行人走便道。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

15 conjures   

用魔术变出( conjure的第三人称单数 )； 祈求，恳求； 变戏法； （变魔术般地） 使…出现

参考例句：

• The word 'birthday' conjures up images of presents and parties. “生日”这个词使人想起礼物和聚会的情景。
• The name Sahara conjures up images of a desert of aridity. "撒哈拉"这个名字使人想起干旱的沙漠情景。

16 minor   

adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修

参考例句：

• The young actor was given a minor part in the new play.年轻的男演员在这出新戏里被分派担任一个小角色。
• I gave him a minor share of my wealth.我把小部分财产给了他。

17 deviations   

背离，偏离( deviation的名词复数 )； 离经叛道的行为

参考例句：

• Local deviations depend strongly on the local geometry of the solid matrix. 局部偏离严格地依赖于固体矩阵的局部几何形状。
• They were a series of tactical day-to-day deviations from White House policy. 它们是一系列策略上一天天摆脱白宫政策的偏向。

18 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。