UN proclaims decade of action for road safety

(March 03,2010) The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the period from 2011 to 2020 as the Decade of Action for Road Safety. It took this step to spur national and global efforts to halt, or reverse the increasing trend in road traffic deaths and injuries around the world. In the resolution adopted on Tuesday, the 192-member body also requested the World Health Organization - WHO, in cooperation with other partners, to prepare a plan of action to guide efforts during the Decade, which was called for - during the First Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety, held in Moscow last year. “This Decade is long overdue,” Dr. Etienne Krug, Director of WHO’s Department of Violence and Injury Prevention and Disability, told reporters in New York ahead of the Assembly’s action.
Some 1.3 million people die every year around the world from road traffic crashes. Majority of those people are pedestrians, bicyclists, people on motorcycles, or people who very often are not even able to afford a car but are the victims of car crashes. In addition to the death toll, between 20 and 50 million people sustain non-fatal injuries every year from road traffic accidents. Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death among young people aged between 15 and 44.