The Make Roads Safe campaign

Russians are among the world’s worst drivers. It’s a truly terrifying experience being a pedestrian in Moscow. (I’ve had three close calls in the past three years.)

"Make Roads Safe: The Campaign for Global Road Safety" is a remarkable thing, highlighting the thousands of needless deaths that occur every year on the world’s roads.

According to the group, 1.2 million people die in traffic accidents each year, and that includes 700 children per day. Road accidents are the biggest killer of people between the ages of 19 and into their late 20s, and they are the second biggest killer of kids betweens the ages of 5 and 14.

The group’s goal is to reduce the number of traffic-related deaths by 5 million over the next 10 years, and the number of serious injuries by 50 million.

Because the deaths are gradual — spread over both space and time — recognition of what activists call an “epidemic” has been slow in coming.

“If this was a disease, it would be at the top of the U.N. agenda,” Kevin Watkins, a senior fellow at Oxford, said at the first road safety conference in Moscow last month.

“The development community … has been part of the problem. We have been negligent and silent for far too long and we haven’t treated it as a crisis. We’ve treated it as a peripheral issue,” he said. Beyond the personal tragedies, low income countries lose an average of 2 to 4 percent of annual GDP because of road traffic deaths and injuries. “Losses from road injuries massively outweigh the benefits brought to any country by international aid,” Watkins said.

Without urgent action, the problem is expected to get worse, as more and more countries industrialize, spreading the use of cars. Deaths are expected to reach 1.3 million this year (with 90 percent of those occurring in the world’s poorest countries), and that number is expected to double by 2030.

To learn more about the Make Roads Safe campaign, visit their website. 

Russians are among the world’s worst drivers. It’s a truly terrifying experience being a pedestrian in Moscow. (I’ve had three close calls in the past three years.)

"Make Roads Safe: The Campaign for Global Road Safety" is a remarkable thing, highlighting the thousands of needless deaths that occur every year on the world’s roads.

According to the group, 1.2 million people die in traffic accidents each year, and that includes 700 children per day. Road accidents are the biggest killer of people from the age of 19 into their late 20s, and they are the second biggest killer of kids betweens the ages of 5 and 14.

The group’s goal is to reduce the number of traffic-related deaths by 5 million over the next 10 years, and the number of serious injuries by 50 million.

Because the deaths are gradual — spread over both space and time — recognition of what activists call an “epidemic” has been slow in coming.

“If this was a disease, it would be at the top of the U.N. agenda,” Kevin Watkins, a senior fellow at Oxford, said at the first road safety conference in Moscow last month.

“The development community … has been part of the problem. We have been negligent and silent for far too long and we haven’t treated it as a crisis. We’ve treated it as a peripheral issue,” he said. Beyond the personal tragedies, low income countries lose an average of 2 to 4 percent of annual GDP because of road traffic deaths and injuries. “Losses from road injuries massively outweigh the benefits brought to any country by international aid,” Watkins said.

Without urgent action, the problem is expected to get worse, as more and more countries industrialize, spreading the use of cars. Deaths are expected to reach 1.3 million this year (with 90 percent of those occurring in the world’s poorest countries), and that number is expected to double by 2030.

To learn more about the Make Roads Safe campaign, visit their website.

http://www.globalpost.com/notebook/russia-and-its-neighbors/091208/moscow-make-roads-safe-campaign