With more than 1.3 million deaths worldwide each year and nearly 50 million serious injuries, traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for children and young people between 5 and 29 years old. Road crashes are a global health issue that incites loss of livelihoods and feeds cycles of poverty. Road traffic fatalities disproportionately affect low- and middle-income countries, where 90% of global road deaths occur.
Ensuring safe mobility and transport is crucial to access to education, jobs, health and social services, shops, family and friends, sport or culture. Rural isolation disproportionately harms the poor, older persons, persons with disabilities, children and women. Safe transport is critical to moving people out of poverty.
However, 95 per cent of the world’s transport energy still coming from burning fossil fuels, the transport sector produces a quarter of all energy-related emission. There is therefore a strong correlation between road safety and climate change that we need to address globally.
