“Globally, road traffic crashes cause nearly 1.3 million preventable deaths and an estimated 50 million injuries each year – making it the leading killer of children and young people worldwide,” a new Road Safety campaign launch on July 1 stated.
Much more sobering, the Global Plan established by the U.N. three years ago predicts: “As things stand, they are set to cause a further estimated 13 million deaths and 500 million injuries during the next decade.” The Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030 was launched three years ago and the new effort is designed to scale up the commitments.
The worldwide launch – with fourteen celebrities and sports figures – is called #MakeASafetyStatement, a U.N. effort with the private sector. The 2024 launch followed the U.N. General Assembly’s first high-level meeting that called for action to cut road safety crashes in half, adopted by consensus in a political declaration. “Unsafe roads are a key obstacle to development,” U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres told diplomats in the General Assembly Hall, calling for new and “more ambitious” action including reducing the biggest risks: “speeding, driving under the influence of alcohol or any psychoactive substance or drug, failure to use seatbelts, helmets and child restraints, unsafe road infrastructure and unsafe vehicles, poor pedestrian safety, and inadequate enforcement of traffic laws.” The primary cause of death globally of young people aged 5-29 is road accidents, Guterres said. At the launch of the new campaign, were Jean Todt, U.N. Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Road Safety, Jean-Luc Decaux, President & Co-CEO at JCDecaux North America, and Edward Mermelstein, New York City’s Commissioner for International Affairs. In order to hear more about the Road Safety campaign, ENVOY Magazine spoke with the panelists. Questions and answers below have been edited for length and clarity.
To achieve the global plan and reduce deaths, are lower speed limits part of the program?
Commissioner Mermelstein: A reduction of speed limit from 30 to 25 miles an hour in New York City has tremendously reduced, not just fatalities, but especially injuries. And we are we are looking at the potential further reduction that has been discussed.
Special Envoy Todt: If we think about speeds, if I’m in New York, I feel confident that the problem is being properly addressed, same as in Geneva, or Paris. But, 93% of the victims occur in low- and middle-income countries. Last week, I was in Sierra Leone, in Africa. And the situation was totally different. If you take the U.S., you take France, European countries, Switzerland, there is law enforcement, there are proper vehicles, there are proper roads, there are proper post-crash care. If you go to Africa, there is no education, there is not enough law enforcement.
How does it work?
Special Envoy Todt: And so, my mandate at the U.N. as Special Envoy, I speak with governments to try to make them understand – to influence them – and I will say with certain results. A couple of months ago, I was in Rwanda, the most organized country in Africa on road safety because there is discipline. But my concern was about motorbike drivers and passengers, and I was concerned about the quality of the helmet. And I demonstrated to President Kagame that the helmets that were used were not at the proper standard – they were very fragile. He said, “Okay, and we’re going to launch the introduction of a proper un safety standard, helmet ventilated, below $20.” A few weeks earlier, I was in South Africa also to launch our campaign, and I was with the Minister of Transport. We distributed – together with private sector – helmets free of charge.
How do you get the message across?
Special Envoy Todt: Thanks to the generosity of JCDecaux, and celebrities – so it’s communication. There is also a U.N. Road Safety Fund, which was voted by member states in 2018, and the finance is coming from member states, from the private sector and with those allocations. We generate funding for countries in low and middle income world in order to allow them to generate some programs around road safety.
Mr. Decaux: First of all, this is a full initiative that Jean Todt developed and he reached out to the JCDecaux company and to the Decaux family. And, without much hesitation, we decided and will be supporting this initiative because everyone can see how important it is. We will be using all our displays. Right now, this morning as I arrived in New York, walking from Grand Central to the U.N., we are now digital bus shelters, we are a digital newsstand – and that was not a coincidence – that’s part of the launch of the campaign. It is launched live today in New York, Boston and Chicago as the kickoff of this campaign. This campaign has got a long life of two years. The idea is to make sure that it has impact, and it has impact if we deploy as many sites as possible.
Special Envoy Todt: We announced the campaign in New York, in July 2020 – two years ago – and one of the countries we went to was Mongolia for the reason of the importance of reaching slightly under developed countries, where there is less regulation. But the problem is everywhere, you know, and it touches everybody.
Are the issues the same as a few years ago?
Special Envoy Todt: When we speak about road safety, we all know people, relatives, friends, colleagues, who have been hurt on the road of who have died on the road. Unfortunately, we are all vulnerable on the road. Mobility is changing. A city like New York City is facing the threat of scooters and electric bicycles. One century ago, there were horse carriages and in a way the cities were built to hold these kinds of vehicles. So it has been an adaptation. That’s why we really need to engage everybody who can help us and again, media, social media and all ambassadors – we’re asking them to use their media influence to help us to address the issue.
Special Envoy Todt called this “the silent pandemic?” Is it?
Commissioner Mermelstein: Again, the way we look at it, and this is something that the Mayor speaks about all the time is that one death on the road – or because of road hazards – has been too many. And our goal is to continue finding ways to get to the zero. And we will continue working with our partners, whether it’s companies like JCDecaux, the United Nations, or cities all over the globe, we find opportunities in the most remote places and find ways to make city streets safer. And we will continue to do that until we get to that point. But education I think is very important, especially as it relates to electronics – and that is a big issue.
To Jean Todt: You were a Ferrari driver, you drove fast. What motivated you to get into road safety? And your academy award winning wife is part of the campaign?
I think in life if you have some success, I think it is important to give something back. Having been a racer, a team leader, I have some experience about motor racing, road, and crashes and I’ve been the witness of accidents in motor racing.
So I always said, for me, motor racing has to be a laboratory to the road, and incidentally the helmet – the $20 helmet that was developed together with engineers working on special helmets for motor racing. At the time, I started to engage with the United Nations and with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon who decided for the first time, to appoint a Secretary General Special Envoy for Road Safety. And my wife [Editors note: Academy Award-winning actress Michelle Yeoh] who is a U.N. Development program Goodwill Ambassador was fascinated by that. And when you hear the damage that it makes, and when you hear me, the potential for improvement, you want to be involved and she was very keen to be involved.
That’s exactly what we are trying to do here, to build a winning team under the U.N. umbrella to make that victim on the road not to be silent anymore. But to achieve that, again, it can be the result of making the best teams with member states, private sector, cities, and media.
