Greig Craft, President of the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation and Michelle Yeoh, actress, join the children on their march.
Make Roads Safe ambassador Michelle Yeoh and 2000 children have marched through Ho Chi Minh City to urge the United Nations to support a Decade of Action for Road Safety.
At a high profile event at the Reunification Palace in Ho Chi Minh organised by the Asia Injury Prevention (AIP) Foundation to promote helmet wearing, the movie star cited Vietnam’s progress in improving road safety as an example of the kind of action needed globally to reduce road deaths in the coming decade.
“Today, tomorrow and every day, we will see at least 2000 young children killed or seriously injured on the world’s roads. This is unacceptable, preventable and we have to stop it. We have the vaccines for this disease: helmets, seatbelts, speed enforcement, safe road design. We just need to use them. Our call for a Decade of Action for Road Safety between 2010-2020 will focus attention on what can be achieved if the political will is there”, Michelle Yeoh said.
In response to calls from the Make Roads Safe campaign the UN will hold a first ever global governmental conference on road safety, next year in Moscow, to tackle this rapidly growing epidemic. Now the Make Roads Safe campaign is calling on governments attending the UN Conference to support a Decade of Action for Road Safety 2010-2020, modeled on the current UN Decade to Roll Back Malaria, in a bid to prevent the worst predictions of road deaths and injuries. Already 1.3 million people are killed on the world’s roads each year, a toll set to increase to 2.4 million by 2030 according to World Health Organization predictions.
Michelle Yeoh led 2000 children in Make Roads Safe t-shirts and motorcycle helmets on a ‘March for Road Safety’ along a main avenue of Ho Chi Minh. The march, organised by the AIP Foundation and the Make Roads Safe campaign, was also supported by representatives of the Vietnamese government, WHO, the Danish Ambassador, the Australian Consul General and a senior official from the US embassy.
Greig Craft, President of the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation, said: “By successfully implementing and enforcing a mandatory motorcycle helmet law Vietnam has demonstrated that it is possible to bring down deaths and injuries on the roads. A sustained effort of this kind over ten years by governments, the private sector and NGOs as part of a Decade of Action could save millions of lives here in Asia alone”.
The ‘March for Road Safety’ was followed by a press conference, attended by more than 70 journalists.