WHO knows?

WHO Director General Margaret Chan has launched a Global Status Report on road safety at an event in New York with mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose philanthropic foundation funded the work. You can access the full report here http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_status/2009

Some key findings:

half of those killed on the roads are vulnerable road users (i.e. not in cars or trucks)

only around half of countries have comprehensive laws covering seat belt and helmet use

fewer than 20% of countries rate their own efforts at enforcing these rules as higher than 7/10.

The report includes information from 178 countries (covering 98% of the world's population) and provides a useful baseline from which we could measure progress if we get a Decade of Action. One obvious area for improvement is in data collection. Some of the injury statistics provided by countries for the survey paint a very optimistic picture of their own road safety situations, either by design or through significant failings in their reporting systems. So while WHO's Global Burden of Disease analysis (which models for underreporting) estimates global road deaths at just under 1.3 million, countries self-reported just 660,000 deaths for this survey. That's a big gap.

Bremner, Brown and Barack

A reminder that promoting road safety doesn't have to be all doom and gloom came today with a comic turn by Rory Bremner at the UK launch of our 'Call for a Decade of Action' at the House of Commons. The impressionist and political satirist brought Gordon Brown and Barack Obama to the podium in support of the campaign (although it might be best if they don't read the transcript) and took advantage of the presence of racing world champion Lewis Hamilton to take a detour through the F1 cost cutting imbroglio. But he finished on message, with a serious and moving plea for action which seemed to impress the audience of MPs, staffers and Hamilton autograph hunters.

If you haven't seen Rory in action check this out from his TV show http://www.wikio.co.uk/video/1259032 . We won't be posting a video of his performance at our launch for reasons of self-preservation.

Another statistic...but reasons to hope

We came upon the crash scene on the dual carriageway just outside Phnom Penh airport. A smashed and twisted motorcycle, a tuktuk on its side. On the verge a woman sat rocking back and forth in silence, while a man pumped his hands against the chest of a prone body lying in the grass, someone on the way to becoming another statistic. Traffic weaved around the wreckage, edging past the crowd of onlookers.

At least four people are killed every day on the roads of Cambodia, a country of only 14 million. We were here to launch the Call for a Decade of Action for Road Safety, at a 'Helmets for Kids' event organised by the AIP Foundation. The campaign received enthusiastic support from the education minister, the transport ministry, the national road safety committee and the police. Organisations like Handicap International and the Red Cross are here working hard on road safety, and there is much to do. Poor infrastructure, low levels of enforcement, little evidence of helmet wearing. But I'm told by those who know that people in the government are committed to improving road safety, and the Cambodian transport minister has already agreed to come to the Moscow Conference. With political engagement, strong NGO support and the example of Vietnam's helmet success across the border, Cambodia is the kind of country that could really benefit from the increased focus, attention and resourcing a Decade of Action might bring.

One death, many tragedies

At the recent launch of our new Make Roads Safe report in Rome, we worked with Fleet Forum to bring a range of development NGOs round the table including Oxfam, World Vision, and Interaction, plus some of the big UN agencies operating fleets. The aim was to discuss their exposure to road injuries, both for employees driving and travelling on often dangerous roads and for the vulnerable people they are working in the poorest countries to help, and how fleet safety can be improved. And we also discussed road safety as a development issue - how poor road safety impacts on provision of health services, how it disrupts education, and imposes often unbearable financial burdens on families struggling above and below the poverty line.

So it is interesting to read this http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=275 by Oxfam's Head of Research, Duncan Green. This kind of terrible story, and the appalling waste of potential and humanity it represents is happening all too often. It's not just a tragedy for Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem's friends, family and colleagues, but also a setback for the hundreds of thousands of mothers-to-be for whom he was working to improve ante-natal care, a micro example of how neglect of road safety can seriously damage other agendas and delivery of the MDGs.