Lord Robertson

More than 1.2 million people are killed and 50,000 injured annually on the world’s roads and now a global campaign is being waged to put road safety on the international political agenda. Launched by the independent Commission for Global Road Safety, the “Make Roads Safe” campaign is aimed at halting the global epidemic of death which is said to be on a scale similar to that of malaria and tuberculosis.

The global number of road deaths is equivalent to a 9/11 catastrophe occurring every day of the year. As a result, Commission leaders want the world’s richest nations – collectively known as the G8, which includes Britain – to put road safety on the agenda of a future summit. And, with the first United Nations Global Road Safety Week scheduled for 23-29 April next year, the Commission wants the public to join its campaign by signing an online petition at www.makeroadssafe.org and to raise awareness in offices, communities and schools and by writing to MPs.

“There are a very small number of dedicated road safety professionals working in the major multilateral institutions worldwide”

Commission chairman Lord Robertson, the former Labour MP and NATO chief, says: “Every day 3,000 people are killed in road crashes. We know that many of these deaths are preventable. But we need political leadership from the G8 and a significant increase in resources if we are to ‘Make Roads Safe’. “While the fight against malaria and TB justifiably commands considerable funding and political and media attention, global road safety is seriously under resourced. Global road safety has barely featured on the international political agenda, yet it should be a priority for sustainable development.”

Commission members, who include Formula One motor racing world champion Michael Schumacher, say that failing to cut road deaths – which are second only to HIV/AIDS as a global killer of young men – will jeopardise key development goals on health and poverty. The report says: “Road traffic injuries are a hidden and global epidemic affecting millions of human lives and costing billions of dollars in economic costs every year. They are a particular burden on the poorest people and countries.”

RoadSafe is focused on helping overcome the road safety crisis in middle and low-income countries and has already been involved in work in Costa Rica, and next year will be taking the road safety message to India. There are a very small number of dedicated road safety professionals working in the major multilateral institutions worldwide, and the technical capacity of developing countries to develop and implement effective road safety strategies and programmes is weak, says the “Make Roads Safe” report.

In response, RoadSafe director Adrian Walsh says: “In terms of a world road safety league table, Britain is close to the top. We therefore have a duty to make our professional knowledge and best practice expertise available to the developing world.” The Commission calculates that the economic cost of death and injury on roads in developing countries is $100 billion a year. With most of those people being pedestrians and the breadwinner in their families, the effect of a crash can be poverty for their relatives.

In launching the “Make Roads Safe” campaign, the Commission has compared the measures required to the announcements made by the G8 leaders in response to 2005’s call to “Make Poverty History”. Lord Robertson says: “Dangerous roads have an impact on every development objective. High-income countries have learned through painful experience that it is possible to reduce road casualties even as traffic increases. Now the challenge is to transfer this knowledge into low and middle-income countries.

“We need politicians to recognise the scale of the road safety epidemic and to prioritise practical action on road deaths.”

Although G8 allocated $1.2bn to new roads in Africa, only $20m was allocated to road safety

To enable this to happen the Commission is calling for:

• Action by the G8 and a United Nations summit to agree high-level political commitment to reduce global road deaths.
  
  
• A $300m, 10-year, global action plan funded by governments and the private sector to improve road safety in developing countries.
  
  
• At least 10% of the total cost of planned road infrastructure development to be invested into safer roads.
  
  
• At least 10% of all road infrastructure projects to be committed to road safety in developing countries.
  
  
• A global road safety charter to be created, through which stakeholders can pledge their support and the rising toll of road traffic deaths and injuries can be reversed.
  
  
• Governments in low- and middle-income countries to adopt their own national road traffic casualty reduction targets.

It is suggested that the action plan would be managed by a new Global Road Safety Facility that would train local people to manage their own road safety programmes; encourage police, government and courts to enforce traffic laws fairly; and promote road safety measures such as seatbelt and helmet use. At the G8’s 2005 “Make Poverty History” summit, leaders approved an initial $1.2bn for new roads in Africa. However, says the Commission, only $20m was allocated to road safety. The report says that sum is “far below official guidelines” and adds: “Unless road safety is taken seriously, millions of people will be killed and injured on these new roads in the years ahead.”

However, the Commission is concerned that as billions of pounds are ploughed into countries by the G8 members, which will undoubtedly include money to build new roads, those gains will be at risk if action is not taken to reverse the rising toll of road traffic death and injury. With pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists facing the greatest risk, the report says: “Road investment will increase exposure to the risk of road traffic deaths and injuries, unless a coherent action plan for road safety is also put in place.

“High-income countries have developed effective road safety measures after decades of trial and error and human tragedy. While more effort is still needed in the industrialised nations the major challenge now is to ensure through early intervention that low and middle-income countries do not have to experience the same bitter learning curve. Much of the experience available in high-income countries is transferable to low and middle-income countries.”

RoadSafe embraces the ambitions of the Commission for Global Road Safety in three specific ways:

• Through the annual Prince Michael of Kent International Road Safety Awards which recognise achievement and influence in terms of ideas and concepts that can be adapted globally.
  
  
• Through RoadSafe News – a regular e-mail bulletin that is distributed to 4,000 road safety professionals worldwide – the UK-based organisation can link with people in the developing world and make them aware of best practice and key developments.
  
  
• By supporting the global Transport Knowledge Partnership by providing governance and direction for some of the knowledge transfer programmes, which are largely web-based, and workshops. Next year RoadSafe is involved in association with the FIA Foundation in a workshop in India, having this year supported one in Costa Rica.

In 2002-03 the FIA Foundation supported a seatbelt campaign in Costa Rica. The campaign, organised by a coalition of Costa Rican organisations supported by the government, succeeded in reintroducing seatbelt legislation and dramatically increasing seatbelt usage. That campaign has now been recognised with a Prince Michael International Road Safety Award. This year’s award for Costa Rica’s seatbelt campaign comes on the back of a Prince Michael International Road Safety Award to BP in 2005 for its worldwide “Safer Driving Programme” (RoadSafe: winter 2005/06) and 2004’s Award for “The World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention” issued by the World Health Organization and the World Bank aimed at raising public awareness of road safety (RoadSafe: winter 2004/05).

Meanwhile, the Commission says that the UK’s contribution to the action plan should be at least $2m a year – four times more than it currently allocates to global road safety. Baroness Amos, the Leader of the House of Lords, has admitted that the UK government has not been giving adequate attention to global road traffic injuries, particularly in developing countries. She says: “It is not an area that we focus on sufficiently. There are high levels of road traffic accidents and death. In some countries, the numbers are as high as those dying from HIV/AIDS.”

And Liberal Democrat MP Susan Kramer has said: “Road safety is a global development issue; safe transport is essential. Yet we face a growing epidemic of road traffic death and injury. This terrible human and economic cost falls unfairly on the developing world. The international community must unite to ‘Make Roads Safe’.”

For more information, visit: Website: www.makeroadssafe.org

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