Road Safety moves up the political agenda this week with the inaugural UN global road safety week in London - which Michael Schumacher will launch today - ahead of the UN General Assembly debating road safety in November.
According to the World Health Organisation, road crashes are now the leading cause of death for young people aged 10-25 globally, and over a thousand young people are killed on the roads every day.
Schumacher, who’s also a member of the Commission for Global Road Safety, joined UK road safety organisations to launch the Make Roads Safe campaign’s global petition, which is calling for a UN conference on global road safety, a demand endorsed in a video statement by Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Michael Schumacher said: “A thousand young people under the age of 25 die every day on the roads. Road crashes kill on the scale of Malaria or Tuberculosis, yet the international community has not woken up to this horrific waste of life. That is why I strongly support the Make Roads Safe campaign and the proposal that the United Nations organise a first ever UN ministerial conference to tackle this preventable loss of life”.
In a video statement recorded for UN Global Road Safety Week, Prime Minister Tony Blair added, “Every minute of every day a child is killed or seriously injured on the world’s roads. Road crashes are the second leading cause of death for young men after HIV/AIDS, and in some African countries more than 70% of those killed on the roads are young breadwinners. It is becoming clear that road injury has a serious impact on the wider development goals we are all trying to achieve. So I commend the proposal that the UN should organise a global Ministerial meeting on road safety”.
Edmund King, executive director, RAC Foundation and a coordinator of the Make Roads Safe campaign said: "We must do more to make our roads safe at home and across the globe. Half of all children killed or seriously injured on the roads in England come from deprived areas and this is reflected in the fact that 90% of those killed globally are from low and middle income countries. The road safety community in the UK is united behind the call for a UN global ministerial conference to give urgently needed direction to road injury prevention.”
Expect plenty more statements as the week wears on.