Transportation has always been an important part of the lifestyles of the society because of the conveniences and assistances it provide for the fast and active lifestyle of the modern civilization. Due to its aid, travel both for short distance and long distance became fast, efficient and mostly comfortable for the people who have nomadic business. In addition, business all throughout the entire globe became simpler because of the many transportation services that are easily available.
However, entice in this very beneficial innovation are great dangers and risk especially if the necessary attention and precaution are neglected. Many transportation accidents occur due to the negligence of the authority involved and the improper use of the transportation device, which has either, took small or large number of casualties. These accidents resulted to the moderate and serious physical injuries sometimes even resulting to permanent disabilities or worse death of its victims.
Thus, due to severity of the damages and casualties transportation posts to the public, necessary attention and concern must be directed to it to ensure the prevention of these accidents. Public Health Risk Basing from the information that are explicit contained in the Office of Transportation Safety Report by Office of Injury Prevention involving the three common transportation vehicles, transportation using the medium of motorcycles seems to post the greatest risk to the public safety.
Comparing the number of drivers with the number of accidents occurred, out of 10, 000 drivers there had been 3,000 reported cases of accidents thus posing a 30% rate of accidents with each driver. Compare to transportation using airplanes and automobiles that only has 20% and 10% chances respectively, motorcycles has the highest occurrence rate thus topping the list of number of accident cases. However due to the nature and the number of people involve in each category, airplane accidents still has the biggest public risk.
Commonly, motorcycle transportation involves only a single person, which is the driver, but airplane transportation has a common minimum of 10 or more for each trip, thus an accident involving a vehicle with great number of people will also endanger the safety of more people. With also an occurrence rate of 20% or a ratio of 1 out of 5 drivers will experience an accident, airplane transportation has a greater transportation risk than motorcycles transportation due to its damages and the great number of people it will endanger.
Health Education Program Since airplane transportation has a great public health risk, traveling by it should be done cautiously to prevent any accident occurrence. It is also proper to inform and educate the public especially its commuters safety measures and information on what to do in case of accidents and things to do to prevent its incidents mainly the prohibited things and acts inside and outside the transportation premises.
Take for example the use of mobile or radio devices on board the plane especially during its take-off and landing procedures (Buck, 1999). Thus, these things should also be included and emphasized in the health education program to reduce the rate of airplane related accidents. Also, the management of the airliners whether large or medium scale must be thorough and fastidious enough regarding the safety of their passengers.
They must be strict and must closely monitor their operations and the maintenance of their transportation device and operation to ensure its efficient working condition thus decreasing the chances of accidents. Because of the many conveniences and the efficiency of airplane-related transportation, it became a fundamental necessity to the rapid lifestyle of the modern society. Thus to prevent accidents with these transportation mode, sufficient carefulness, concern and information are required to ensure the health of the public using this transportation medium.