The UN General Assembly mandates the WHO and the UN regional commissions to plan and host periodic UN Global Road Safety Weeks. The 7th UN Global Road Safety Week will take this year from 15-21 May. The theme is sustainable transport, and specifically the need for governments to facilitate a shift to walking, cycling and using public transport. Road safety is both a prerequisite for this shift to happen and an outcome of it. The slogan is #RethinkMobility.
The Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030 reflects an ambitious target to reduce road traffic deaths and injuries by 50% by 2030. It highlights that they can be prevented by addressing the whole of the transport system, taking action to ensure safe roads, vehicles and behaviours as well as to improve emergency care. WHO, in collaboration with partners, organizes periodic UN Global Road Safety Weeks. This 7th edition focuses on sustainable transport, in particular the need to shift to walking, cycling and using public transport. Road safety is both a prerequisite for and an outcome of this shift.
Key messages of the 7th UN Global Road Safety Week:
- Governments and their partners need to rethink mobility – this includes investing in walking, cycling and using public transport, which can promote equity and health for people and the planet.
- Safety must be at the core of efforts to reimagine mobility – this puts road safety at the core for all road users.
- Thus road networks must be designed with the most-at-risk in mind – children, adolescents, persons with disabilities, pedestrians, cyclists, and users of public transport.
- Walking and cycling, when safe, contributes to people’s health and makes cities sustainable and societies equitable.
- Safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable public transport solves many of society’s ill.
Add quote from DFRS / or Joost Vantomme, CEO of ERTICO and Chair of Data For Road Safety.
Source: United Nations & European Commission
