Rosario Alessi, Chairman of the FIA Foundation spoke this week at a national road safety event in Sofia organised by the State Commission for Road Safety in Bulgaria to address the safety of children on the roads.
Speaking at the event, chaired by the Bulgarian Minister of Internal Affairs, Professor Pelkanov, and attended by representatives from Bulgarian ministries and organisations with an interest in road safety, Mr Alessi called for the recognition of the issue of the safety of children on the roads as a policy area in its own right - one that “must receive attention at local, national and international level in order for concerted efforts to be made to reduce child fatalities on the roads.”
Mr Alessi told delegates that, according to estimates by the WHO, more than 180,000 children are killed on the world’s roads annually. If action is not taken, this figure is projected to rise by 65% by 2020. The FIA Foundation has, he said, been extremely active in promoting road safety at a global level – successfully campaigning for the first UN resolution on road safety and encouraging the UN in Geneva to dedicate a road safety week in 2007 to the road safety needs of children and young roads users – however, more can be done to reduce child deaths on the roads.
The conference provided a forum for the discussion of solutions to the problem of unnecessary and preventable child injury on the roads.
Download the full speech here >