During the Easter weekend the number of road fatalities fell by 42 percent compared to a year earlier, despite a record number of vehicles on the country’s roads.  In Argentina Easter is notorious for the high level of fatal road accidents.

Argentina has one of the highest road mortality rates of Latin America with 27 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants according to the Mercosur Road Safety Report. Only Mexico has a worse road death record. In 2008 alone, there were close to 98,000 serious road accidents, in which more than 7,500 people died.

The high accident rate led to the creation of the National Road Safety Agency (ANSV) in April 2008 by the Ministry of Interior.

The agency aims to halve road fatalities rate in four years through a combination of awareness-raising, stricter legal repercussions and increased police controls.

Efforts are mostly focused on enforcing speed limits, increasing seatbelt and helmet use, reducing drink-driving and preventing drivers from using mobile phones.

This autumn Argentina’s Minister of Interior, Florencio Randazzo, announced that the number of road accident deaths over the Easter holiday weekend had dropped by 42%, with 17 less fatalities than in 2009, despite a record three million cars on the roads.

Randazzo said that the ANSV media efforts had raised the awareness of drivers, contributing largely to the reduced rate.

UNOPS is supporting the project though procurement and recruitment services which improve the operative capacity of the ANSV.

UNOPS has procured 1,150 breathalyzers, which are being used police at random checkpoints; 120 speed cameras and 450 hand-held computers (PDAs) to speed up the processing of driving offences.