Dr. Georges Benjamin, APHA’s Executive Director, supported the United Nations Resolution on Global Road Safety with a letter to Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. Excerpts from Dr. Benjamin’s letter are included below.

On behalf of the American Public Health Association, I write to encourage your support to make road safety a priority for the United Nations (UN). Founded in 1872, the APHA is the oldest and most diverse organization of public health professionals in the world. As the voice of public health, APHA represents a broad array of health providers, educators, environmentalists, policy‐makers and health officials at all levels working both within and outside governmental organizations and educational institutions. As one of the first U.S. non‐governmental organizations to become involved in global health, we continue a long‐standing commitment to global health issues like road traffic safety. We support measures aimed at raising awareness and action in order to address the public health impacts associated with road safety.

Road traffic crashes cause 1.2 million deaths and 30‐50 million serious injuries annually and cost countries 1‐3% of their GDP. Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death for young people worldwide. Without immediate attention, it is anticipated that this figure will double in less than 20 years. Given the number of injuries and deaths due to road traffic crashes, it is clear that road safety is a critically important public health, transportation, and economic concern.

Supporting the UN road safety resolution is significant because it calls for a meeting of all Ministers responsible for road safety for their governments. The result of this high level meeting will draw necessary attention and investment to road safety and injury prevention projects worldwide. Official UN recognition of road safety will serve as a catalyst to push road deaths to the forefront of government and public priorities, resulting in saved lives, fewer injuries, and healthier people and economies.

APHA joins the other members of the Make Roads Safe Campaign for Global Road Safety in urging your support of the road safety resolution that will be debated in March of this year.