UK road safety coalition calls for UN action on road safety

An unprecedented coalition of UK road safety organisations is calling for a United Nations ministerial conference to address the growing epidemic of road deaths in developing countries, as the first UN Global Road Safety Week is launched today.

Prince Michael of Kent

In a video statement recorded for UN Global Road Safety Week, Prime Minister Tony Blair said:

“Every minute of every day a child is killed or seriously injured on the world’s roads. Road crashes are the second leading cause of death for young men after HIV/AIDS, and in some African countries more than 70% of those killed on the roads are young breadwinners. It is becoming clear that road injury has a serious impact on the wider development goals we are all trying to achieve. So I commend the proposal that the UN should organise a global Ministerial meeting on road safety”.

Rob Gifford (PACTS)

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, Chairman of the Commission for Global Road Safety and the Make Roads Safe campaign, said:

“There is a growing recognition that the international community must focus on this carnage on the world’s roads. As the United Nations devotes a special Week to road safety for the first time, we are calling for a more determined response to this growing global crisis. The road safety community in the UK is united behind the call for a UN global ministerial conference to give urgently needed direction to road injury prevention.”

Edmund King, Executive Director, RAC Foundation, said:

"We must do more to make our roads safe at home and across the globe. Half of all children killed or seriously injured on the roads in England come from deprived areas and this is reflected in the fact that 90% of those killed globally are from low and middle income countries."

Lynne Featherstone MP, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson on International Development

Emily Oliver, Road Safety Campaign Manager at the British Red Cross, said:

“Road crashes are a worsening global disaster destroying lives and livelihoods. The British Red Cross supports the Make Roads Safe Campaign in calling for greater awareness and action to be taken to stem this humanitarian catastrophe.”

Robert Gifford, Executive Director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, said:

"While the United Kingdom has a relatively good record in reducing casualties, this has been achieved over the last 20 years. On an international level, the scale of death and injury on the roads is far too high and getting worse. One task for the UK is to see whether any of the lessons from 20 years of casualty reduction can be of use to our international partners to help them benefit from our experience and void our mistakes."

Jools Townsend, head of education at Brake, said:

Barry Sherman MP

“Through Brake’s work to support people affected by road crashes we are all too aware of the terrible impact of road death and injury – tearing apart families and communities every day in the UK and across the globe. Children and young people are far more likely to be killed or injured than older people, meaning road deaths are often also a tragic waste of young life. We hope Global Road Safety Week will help highlight the impact of road casualties around the world and the need for urgent action. Nationally and internationally, the issue of road safety has been on the back-burner for far too long. It is high time UK and world leaders made making roads safe a top priority.”

Tony Spalding, chairman of RoadSafe UK said:

“Many governments in the developing world need support from those countries which have already found solutions to this crisis; the technical know how is already available, what is needed is UN leadership, we strongly support the call for a ministerial conference’.

Kevin Clinton, Head of Road Safety, The Royal Society for the prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), said:

RoSPA is delighted to support the first United Nations Global Road Safety Week, which focuses on young road users. It is a much needed and important opportunity to raise awareness of the awful and unnecessary waste of life on roads in all countries around the Globe. It will help to improve the safety of the hundreds of millions of young people who travel the world’s roads every day. We hope the events of the Week will serve as inspiration for new and effective road safety initiatives in the years ahead."

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