Global push to save lives

Road safety is a critical issue worldwide. Roadway accidents account for 1.5 million deaths and 50 million injuries annually. Now an international organisation is working to promote road safety in an effort to bring those numbers down.

Before 2004 there was little awareness of road safety as an international health problem, says Etienne Krug, director of the department for violence and injury prevention and disability at the World Health Organisation (WHO).
“We made road safety the main issue for World Health Day 2004,” he says. “And that led to a United Nations resolution to set up a network of UN agencies under the leadership of WHO to deal with road safety.”

Governments and the transport industry

WHO opened the network to other organisations in the field – “to have a better representation of the real world,” says Krug – and now there are 45 partners in the UN Road Safety Collaboration, from international agencies to national governments, road safety lobby groups and representatives of the transport industry.

The main task of the collaboration is to build political commitment, especially in lower- and middle-income countries. “There’s a certain fatalism,” Krug says. “People think that road deaths are the price of development, that development means more roads, more roads mean more vehicles, more vehicles mean more death and injury. The challenge is to show that you don’t need to have that cycle.”

Different players for increased road safety

There’s also an important role here for the transport industry. The collaboration has a working party on Fleet Safety. WHO’s Matts-Åke Belin, a member of that group, is also helping WHO develop its own fleet policy. “So far road safety issues have mainly addressed governments,” he says. “But many countries, especially in Africa and Asia, have very weak governments, and major companies or international organisations may be much stronger. So they should be working to improve their own road safety with their own transport and staff. That way they also contribute to general road safety in the country.”

One main function of the collaboration is to make best practice widely available, so that countries facing problems new to them can learn from those who have dealt with them already. To that end WHO and the World Bank, together with the Global Road Safety partnership and the FIA Foundation, are producing practical guides to policy. For example, as well as an extensive World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention, there are booklets about drinking and driving and speed control. More are to follow, but, says Krug, “we have to strike a balance between adding more manuals and ensuring they are implemented.”

Successful road safety initiatives

All the same, good policy saves lives. In Vietnam, which has 14 million motorbikes, a new helmet law came into effect in December 2007. “Overnight,” says Krug, “helmet use went from 10 to 20 percent to almost 100 percent. It may be one of the most successful road safety initiatives ever, possibly resulting in a 20 to 30 percent decrease in head injuries, according to preliminary figures.”

At the other end of the national income scale, Sweden adopted its Vision Zero policy in 1997, with a government resolution stating that no deaths or injuries were acceptable on the roads. Since then, speed limits have been reconsidered, roundabouts have replaced junctions and other steps have been taken.

But, says Belin, in a country like Sweden the infrastructure and the attitudes are already there. That doesn’t apply everywhere.

Belin believes that corporate leadership and internal policies on requirements for vehicles, drivers and the use of vehicles are the central issues, as well as follow-up. In this the oil and medical industries are leading the field.

“But,” he says, “although initial results are quick and impressive, companies reach a plateau regarding what they can do on their own. At some point companies have to make demands on governments and work with them if they are to reach their targets.”

Requirements on road safety projects

The world bank is also addressing the problem head on. Tony Bliss, senior road safety specialist in the department of transport and urban development at the World Bank says that while the bank has always considered road safety issues when financing infrastructure, “we’re now investing in safety directly.”  The World Bank is developing a tool for star-rating the protective qualities of existing infrastructure and providing a cost-benefit analysis for upgrading to higher scores.

Bliss points out that moves such as replacing intersections with roundabouts are simple to achieve. “It’s almost impossible for someone to get killed on a roundabout. The angle of entry is different, vehicles are forced to slow down. There may be more crashes, but fewer deaths and serious injuries.”  As a contrast he points to a large district in Nigeria where it’s now the national policy to install traffic lights at key intersections. “They’re expensive,” he says, “and subject to power outages.”

Meanwhile, there is a clear link between road accidents and a country’s bottom line. In Russia, a massive increase in road deaths has contributed to markedly lower average life expectancy. Bliss points out that one year of average life expectancy is estimated to be worth 4 percent of GDP. Russia has launched a national strategy to address the problem and will also host a Global Ministerial Conference on road safety in 2009 to mobilise action to address this growing public health crisis.

Says Krug: “We want to promote a systems approach. Every country has its own priorities. There’s no single issue. You always have to address roads, vehicles and behaviour together.”

3 questions to...

Maria Jobenius, Head of Communications at Scania Sales and Services Management.

What is Scania doing to increase road safety?

“Road safety is not primarily about advanced infrastructure or vehicle design. It is a matter of human behaviour and attitudes. Scania works to improve road safety by introducing technical solutions, as well as initiatives that influence human behaviour. These initiatives focus on the driver.”

What is Scania doing more explicitly for drivers?

“For more than 20 years Scania has trained drivers in safe and fuel-efficient driving, which automatically results in lower emissions. Scania driver training has a strong focus on changing attitudes.”

How is Scania contributing to public safety?

“Scania regularly organises driver competitions, a safety initiative targeted at improving the driving skills and safety awareness of truck drivers. Last year we reached close to 50,000 drivers globally. “Scania also supports  WHO. In many countries it means encouraging changes in habits and spreading know-how. We participate in each others’ symposiums, both at local and national level, but sometimes also on a global level, such as the planned UN Global Ministerial Conference in Moscow in 2009.”

Accidents in figures

• Every year an estimated 1.2 million people are killed on the roads, and 50 million are injured.

• The WHO estimates that these figures will go up 60 percent by 2020.

• 85 percent of deaths occur in lower- and middle-income countries.