~ submitted by Joyce Pressley

The first global assessment of road safety finds that almost half of the estimated 1.27 million people who die in road traffic crashes each year are pedestrians, motorcyclists and cyclists. While progress has been made toward protecting people in cars, the needs of these vulnerable groups of road users are not being met.

The global status report on road safety, released in New York on Monday, 15 June by Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of WHO, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, provides the first worldwide analysis of how well countries are implementing a number of effective road safety measures. These include limiting speed, reducing drink-driving, and increasing the use of seatbelts, child restraints and motorcycle helmets.

Funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the report - which contains a global overview of the results, one-page country-by-country profiles, and a statistical annex with the key statistics for each country - presents information from 178 countries, accounting for over 98 percent of the world’s population. It uses a standardized method that allows comparisons between countries to be made.

The key messages of the report are:

• Road traffic injuries remain a global public health problem, especially in low-income and middle-income countries.
• Nearly half of those dying on the world's roads are vulnerable road users.
• Few countries have comprehensive road safety laws that are well enforced.
• Few countries have reliable data on road traffic injuries.

New data from the report include:

• Less than a third of countries meet basic criteria for reducing speed in urban areas.
• Less than half of countries use the recommended blood alcohol concentration limit of 0.05 grams per decilitre as a measure to reduce drink-driving.
• While helmet laws exist in more than 90 percent of countries, only 40 percent have a law that covers both riders and passengers while also requiring that helmets meet a specified standard.
• Only 57 percent of countries have laws that require all car occupants to wear seat-belts. This figure is only 38 percent in low-income countries.
• Half of all countries do not have laws requiring the use of child restraints (e.g., child seats and booster seats). This figure masks considerable variation, with relevant laws in 90 percent of high-income countries but only 20 percent of low-income countries.
• Only 15 percent of countries have comprehensive laws which address all five of these risk factors.
• Where laws on these risk factors are in place they are often inadequately enforced, particularly in low-income countries. For example, only 9 percent of countries rate their enforcement of speed limits as over seven on a scale of zero to 10, while the corresponding figure for enforcement of seat-belt laws is 19 percent.
• More than 90 percent of the world’s road deaths occur in low-income and middle-income countries, while these countries only have 48 percent of the world’s vehicles.

Since 15 June the report has drawn significant media attention in many of the world's leading newspapers and on radio and television news programs in many regions.

While road traffic death rates in many high-income countries have stabilized or declined in recent decades, research suggests road deaths are increasing in most regions of the world and that if trends continue unabated, they will rise to an estimated 2.4 million a year by 2030. In addition, road crashes cause between 20 million and 50 million non-fatal injuries every year and are an important cause of disability. In many countries support services for road traffic victims are inadequate. These avoidable injuries also overload already stretched health-care systems in many countries.

The global status report on road safety aims to help countries assess their road safety progress since the release of the World report on road traffic injury prevention and related United Nations General Assembly and World Health Assembly resolutions and encourages increased investment in road traffic injury prevention. In addition, the report will be an important contribution to discussions in the forthcoming First Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety.

Related Links

Global status report on road safety
http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_status/2009

First Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety
http://www.1300000.net/