Make Roads Safe Report Launched

Creation date: 19 June 2006

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, warns a report launched 8 May 2006 by the Commission for Global Road Safety, an organisation dedicated to reducing the 1.2 million deaths and 15 million serious injuries caused by road traffic crashes each year.

Former NATO Chief Lord Robertson, the Commission Chairman, 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.

More than 85% of casualties are in low and middle-income countries. Road deaths in these countries are forecast to almost double by 2020. The report ‘Make Roads Safe’ therefore demands urgent action:

• G8 countries must support a $300 million, 10 year Action Plan to improve road safety in developing countries.
• 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.

Despite causing death and injury on a similar scale to global diseases like Malaria and TB, road traffic injuries are not included in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and receive overseas funding which is a tiny fraction of that allocated to Malaria and TB.

Road crashes also hit the poorest countries and poorest people hardest. The annual economic costs of road crashes to low and middle-income nations are estimated at between $65 billion - $100 billion. This compares with official overseas aid in 2005 of $106 billion. The majority of those killed or injured are pedestrians and other vulnerable road users. Road injury is a significant cause of poverty amongst lower income families who lose a breadwinner.

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.

Commenting on the report, Lord Robertson said:

“In 2005 millions of people, and the leaders of the G8, responded to the call to Make Poverty History. Yet many of the gains for development won in 2005 will be at risk if action is not taken to reverse the growing epidemic of road traffic death and injury, with its terrible human and economic cost. 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.”

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 are being disabled or injured. This is why I support the campaign to Make Roads Safe.”

David Ward, FIA Foundation Director General, said:

“The five main development lending banks, like the World Bank, together fund road projects worth $4 billion a year. Yet between them, these five institutions have just two road safety specialists. The G8 has approved major development funding for new roads in Africa, but road safety is not part of the package. 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”.