Make roads safe

A "third world war" is taking place without guns or bombs but with just as dire consequences, according to the RAC Foundation. More people are being killed in this war every year than have died in recent global conflicts. This war takes place every year and the casualties are mounting. Most of the third world war is waged in the third world. This war is taking place on the roads.

The RAC Foundation is responding to a worrying report launched today in London by the Commission for Global Road Safety (8). It shows that we have a public health crisis, which is already a pandemic. Road deaths are a global epidemic on the scale of Malaria and Tuberculosis and G8 leaders must do more to tackle road safety in developing countries.

The UK Government could help the situation by giving an extra $1.5 million for global road safety – approximately the same amount taken from UK motorists in fuel tax every half hour.

Former NATO Chief Lord Robertson of Port Ellen and an international Commission including 7 times Formula One world champion Michael Schumacher issued a stark warning that failing to act on 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 Make Roads Safe fact file shows:

1.2 million killed each year on the roads
50 million injured each year
500 children killed every day in global road accidents
One child dies every three minutes
3,000 people killed each day
85% casualties in low and middle income countries
Road deaths in these countries forecast to double by 2020

To promote the messages of the report, a Make Roads Safe campaign is also launched today:

The main objective of the campaign, led by the FIA Foundation and the RAC Foundation, is to put global road safety on the G8 agenda and secure political and financial commitments for the recommendations proposed in the Make Roads Safe report;
The UK’s Chancellor rightly talks about the importance of universal primary education but we also need global road safety education to cut the carnage.
The campaign also aims to raise awareness amongst young people round the world of the global, developmental problems of road safety. This will also help to raise awareness about and acceptance of domestic road safety amongst a key high risk age group in terms of road crashes in industrialized countries: men in their late teens and early 20s;
A website www.makeroadssafe.org with an online petition will be live on 8th June.
Later in the year there will be further exciting developments in the campaign to attract the support of young people.

Michael Schumacher, 7 times Formula One World Champion and a member of the Commission, said: "We need to make people aware of the real human cost of road traffic injuries across the developing world. Five hundred children are dying every day and thousands more children are being disabled or injured every day. This is why I support the campaign to Make Roads Safe."

The Commission for Global Road Safety report ‘Make Roads Safe’ outlines a demand for urgent action:

G8 countries must support a $300 million, 10 year Action Plan to improve road safety in developing countries;
The UK contribution to the Action Plan should be at least $2 million a year, approximately four times more than it currently allocates to global road safety;
Road projects in developing countries funded with overseas development aid must include a minimum 10% for road safety improvements including engineering measures, safety rating and assessment, and wider community based road safety initiatives.
A United Nations Road Safety summit – the first ever such meeting - must be convened to coordinate an international approach to road traffic injury prevention.

Lord Robertson will be sending the Make Roads Safe report to all the G8 leaders in advance of the St Petersburg G8 Summit in July 2006 and is calling for global road safety to be included in the agenda of a future G8 summit. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has already written to Lord Robertson confirming that he would support including road safety in a future G8 agenda.

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, the Commission Chairman, said: " Every day 3000 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."

David Ward, FIA Foundation Director General, said: "Unless we make roads safe in Africa, Asia and elsewhere, a whole generation will suffer the human tragedy and economic cost of rising road deaths. If we are to Make Poverty History we must Make Roads Safe".

Edmund King, Executive Director of the RAC Foundation, said: "In relative terms the UK has a good road safety record but we can do much more to reduce the carnage at home and abroad. The 1.2 million deaths on the roads each year equate to a "third world war" or forgotten war that most people ignore. We need world leaders to address the pandemic of global road deaths urgently."