The Global Status Report on Road Safety reaffirms our understanding of road traffic fatalities as a global health and development problem. More than 1.2 million people die on the world's roads every year, and as many as 50 million others are injured. Over 90% or the deaths occur in low-income and middle-income countries.
Beyond the enormous suffering they cause, road traffic crashes can drive a family into poverty as crash survivors and their families struggle to cope with the long term consequences of the event, including the cost of medical care and rehabilitation and all too often funeral expenses and the loss of the family breadwinner. Road traffic injuries also place a huge strain on national health systems, many of which suffer from woefully inadequate levels of resources.
Historically, many of the measures in place to reduce road traffic deaths and injuries are aimed at protecting car occupants. However, as this report shows, nearly half of those killed each year around the world are pedestrians, motorcyclists, cyclists and passengers in public transport; this figure is even higher in the poorer countries and communities of the world.
The Global Status Report on Road Safety draws our attention to the needs of all road users - including these most vulnerable groups. They too must be considered and given equal priority when policy decisions on road safety, land use and urban planning are made.
- Quoted from the document preface by Dr. Margaret Chan
Read More:
- Log in to post comments