Did you know that more than 500 children are killed in road crashes every day and tens of thousands more are injured? Road traffic deaths are a global epidemic that doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves.
Not only are children at high risk in vehicles, on bicycles, and on motorcycles, they are vulnerable as pedestrians and often at serious risk of being injured or killed in the simple act of walking to school.
What we are doing
We are committed to reducing the number of young people killed and seriously injured as a result of preventable injuries, including road traffic crashes. As a strong supporter of the Decade of Action and the inclusion of road safety targets in the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals, safedrive Africa foundation is working to capitalize on these opportunities to make meaningful progress that helps us reverse rising death and injury rates.
We have the capacity to build an effective movement in support of swift action to improve road safety for children. We all use some form of transport, whether it is walking, a bicycle, a motorcycle, or a motor vehicle. An enormous constituency can be cultivated to demand action, particularly when we can jointly use the urgent rallying cry of saving children's lives.
As a strong supporter of the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety which is a worldwide effort to save five million lives on the roads between 2011 and 2020. The Decade of Action, led by the World Health Organization, has brought together an important coalition of organizations devoted to taking action on road safety focused around five pillars: building road safety management capacity; improving the safety of road infrastructure and broader transport networks; further developing the crashworthiness performance and safety of vehicles; changing the behavior of road users; and improving post-crash care. In recognition of the needs of children, the focus of the Third United Nations Global Road Safety Week from May 4-10, 2015, will be on children and road safety. At the same time, efforts are underway to include a specific target for reducing road traffic deaths and injuries in the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals, soon to be adopted by the United Nations.
We have knowledge and expertise on what works to prevent children from being killed or injured in traffic collisions. We have seen that a holistic approach that looks at the entire transport system and takes human error and vulnerability into account is most likely to succeed. In addition, we understand that all stakeholders must be involved in preventing road crashes, including international organizations, governments, foundations, automakers and others in the private sector, non-governmental organizations, health care workers, policymakers, law enforcement, researchers, entrepreneurs, educators, planners, engineers, the media and families.
