Helmet Safety guide published 

A manual providing information on helmet safety has been published by the UN Road Safety Collaboration.

The manual, the first in a series to include seat belt wearing (based on the FIA Foundation’s award winning seat belt manual) and drink driving, provides information and advice aimed mainly at public authorities in low and middle income countries. Many countries, such as Vietnam and Malaysia, are struggling to cope with an explosion in motorcycle use. Getting across the message that helmets save lives is vital and urgent.

The series of road safety manuals commissioned by the UN Road Safety Collaboration are being coordinated by a group including the World Health Organization, World Bank, Global Road Safety Partnership and the FIA Foundation. The UN Collaboration was established on a mandate from the UN General Assembly and is coordinated by the WHO.

Rita Cuypers, Director of Road Safety at the FIA Foundation, said: “This comprehensive guide to helmet use should be of real practical benefit to governments, road safety and public health practitioners across the world. When the UN Road Safety Collaboration was established a strategy was agreed to focus on key injury ‘risk factors’, in order to try to provide tools that would assist national and local efforts to reduce road casualties. Now we need a similar collaborative effort through the Make Roads Safe campaign to ensure that funding is available through the Global Road Safety Facility to enable these practical tools to be used effectively’.