UN Action

Much more must be done by the international community to prevent road deaths.

But a start has been made. World Health Day in April 2004 saw the first global day of action on road safety. A week later, as a result of months of lobbying and campaigning by road safety advocates, the United Nations held its first debate on global road safety.

On 14 April 2004, at an historic plenary session of the United Nations held to address the global road safety crisis, resolution 58/289 on ‘Improving Global Road Safety’, co-sponsored by more than 60 nations, was passed with unanimous consent.

It acknowledged the importance of global road safety for the first time and highlighted the need for urgent collective action to address the numbers of lives lost and injuries caused by road traffic accidents globally.

The resolution, which called on countries to take note of the recommendations contained in the joint WHO/World Bank report on road traffic injury prevention, designated the World Health Organisation as coordinator for road safety issues within the UN system and established a new coordination group to promote road traffic injury prevention. The group is attended by representatives from each of the world’s UN regional commissions.

UN Road Safety Coordination Group

The new UN road safety coordination group is attended by representatives from each of the world’s UN regional commissions, UN agencies such as WHO, the World Bank and UNICEF and NGOs including the FIA Foundation. The first task of the group will be to produce advice manuals for governments, police and public health authorities on road safety ‘risk factors’, the main causes of road injuries.