Tackling the invisible pandemic on our roads

By Jean Todt, UN Secretary General's Special Envoy for Highway Security.
Research the definition of the term pandemic in just about any dictionary and you'll find an entry that describes an illness or illness causing mass anguish on a national, global or, at its most horrific, on an international scale.
The the chance of this kind of occasion, a state that could decimate communities, irrevocably change the lives of millions and make seismic economical repercussions that greatly impact the advancement and aspirations of whole countries, is just horrifying.
How miserable, then, this is a state we nearly unwittingly carry on to stay with every day day, in which we're all-in a way complicit - however which we know the best way to treat.
I'm talking about fatalities and injuries from road-traffic crashes. Every yr on the world's routes nearly 1.3 million individuals perish. In line with the World Health Organisation, road-traffic injuries are actually the eighth leading cause of death worldwide, as well as the top cause of death among teenagers ag ed 15-29 years.
A lot more alarmingly, more than 186 186,000 kids die worldwide each year from highway crashes - that is over 500 500 kids every day, one every 3 minutes minutes.
And though, in a large proportion of instances, these terrible deaths, which in our wish to have accessibility to freedom we somehow lead to 'acceptable losses', will on any specified day just deserve a short news snippet, in these webpages.
This can be a scenario that, along with several others all over the world, I'm decided to address.
It is time for international actions
Great steps have been taken to stop the spread of the plague. In 2011 the Us, in acknowledgement of the disaster we're living through, found a Decade of Activity for Road Safety, the aim of which is always to save five-million lives on the world's streets by 20 20. Tremendous attempts are designed to bring this problem to the very best of the international political agenda as well as the highway safety neighborhood has has already established achievement - but maybe not enough.
The reality is the fact that the amounts for highway fatalities are growing and as the Decade of Activity reaches its midpoint we have been in danger of lacking the challenging goals we've set to prevent this pandemic.
Recognising this, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon lately determined the mission demanded renewed focus as well as in addressing this he bestowed upon me the great honour of getting his Special Envoy for Highway Security.
For me personally, this can be an enormous duty but in addition a fantastic chance. For the last five years, within my function as President of the FIA[1], I 've created highway safety a directing precedence of the organisation as well as in a play to current road safety as among the more significant health and development problems of our time I've travelled across the planet match heads of state, government departments and improvement organisations.
Throughout that time the one factor brought home to me on innumerable occasions is the fact that to successfully press for change on an international scale needs us to talk from an international platform.
In my opinion that organizing the building of the international stage is exactly what the function of Special Envoy is made to reach. This place can become a trigger for change, developing a focus when it comes to mobilising the highway security neighborhood, world leaders and authorities to battle for safer roads, safer vehicles and better driving guidelines.
Measure 1: collecting political will on the other side of the world
The instruments to attain all this are already at hand. Within the previous decades, beneath the auspices of UNECE, the Un is promoting 5 8 conventions and arrangements in terms of international transportation. Many regulate an enormous number of road security regions, like traffic guidelines, the standardisation of street signs and indicators along with vehicle standards.
These legal instruments have been in place: we learn the best way to build safer automobiles; we learn the best way to create safe streets; we understand the advantages of high level and steady traffic rules and road signs in creating folks use streets safer nonetheless. Yet there continue countries and areas that haven't embraced these instruments. If we could get these instituted and right policed on a worldwide basis we might visit a dramatic development in highway safety in the vital regions of the world - the the lower and mid-income nations in which a staggering 9 1% of global road departures happen.
Engendering the political will to to do something in those that consider that inactivity is more economical is going to be essential. This is a project I take with relish for the reality the consequences of road-traffic injuries possess an enormous effect on the financial well-being of states, with between 1-3% of gross domestic product of some states lost per annum.
If we are able to convince authorities to invest a small to deal with all the outward symptoms of the disorder, we'd conserve a lot - in monetary, but most importantly in-human conditions. The vote of the Sustainable Development targets during the UN's Basic Assembly is a new critical landmark in the execution of an international program to nurture road security. The SDGs should therefore execute road safety objectives in the global development plan for the very first time.
Step 2: making advanced, successful funding models
There's an urgent need to drastically raise financing for highway security and we must do a lot more to support the private-sector to create a considerable obligation. To that conclusion I am bringing together a panel of specialists from various disciplines to develop new mechanics where we are able to make the funds needed.
We must appear beyond created, occasionally outdated and unsuccessful models and be open and adaptable to investigate new methods for funding. One thought I've called for, combined with the road security neighborhood, is the institution of a funding mechanism on the basis of the type of of UNITAID as well as the contribution from airplane tickets. This might take the kind of borderline contribution on sales associated with the automotive sector.
This kind of mechanism could quickly create extensive financing, that could then be poured right into a world-wide UN Fund for Highway Security to assist developing countries confront the problems of highway security.
All these are long term targets plus they are going to be difficult won - through advocacy in the best degrees, through lobbying at international, national and local-level, through the creation of better financing mechanisms and via a persistent certainty that change could be presented if we talk loud enough and with one voice, forcing those who continue to relegate this world-wide scourge to the domain of satisfactory and cost-effective losses to appear past the the news headlines in quick also to to determine the pandemic on their door-step.
Biography of Jean Todt
Jean Todt was named Special Envoy of the UN Secretarygeneral for Highway Security by Mr Ban Ki-moon in April 2015. Since 2009, he's been President of the FIA, the global motoring federation. Before then he had a vocation at Peugeot and Ferrari, managing their athletic actions. Jean Todt is additionally involved in several charitable causes such as the ICM, a a respected brain and spinal-cord study institute, as well as the Suu Basis.
[1] Federation Internationale d e l'Automobile, which regroups motoring and motorsports organizations in over 140 140 nations

Read Source

21.09.2015
ID:2896

More news from this source:

1. Manor unleashes its 2016 challenger
2. Force India unveils new F1 car
3. McLaren-Honda reveals its brand-new F1 car for 2016
4. Tech analysis The 12 key changes on the McLaren MP4-31
5. Tech analysis The 15 key changes on the Mercedes W07