Pedestrian safety is a concern throughout the world. The United Nations (UN) in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) developed the UN Road Safety Collaboration. This collaboration set out in 2011 to achieve the goal of saving 5 million lives through Road Safety during the period of 2011 to 2020, referred to as the Decade of Action.
Speed contributes to around one-third of all fatal road traffic crashes in high income countries, and up to half in low and middle-income countries. The Decade of Action seeks to prevent road traffic deaths and injuries which experts project will take the lives of 1.9 million people annually by 2020.
On May 11th of 2011, dozens of countries around the world kicked off the first global Decade of Action. The Global Plan for the Decade of Action outlines steps towards improving the safety of roads and vehicles, enhancing emergency services, and building up road safety management.
The UN Road Safety Collaboration announced that the Fourth UN Global Road Safety Week would be held from May 8th to the 14th in 2017. The Week focused on speed and what can be done to address this key risk factor for road traffic deaths and injuries.
As stated in the "Save Lives, #SlowDown" web site, it states:
Evidence shows that the key solutions for managing speed are establishing and enforcing speed limit laws, building or modifying roads to include features to limit speed, installing technologies in vehicles, and raising awareness about the dangers of speeding as well as the actual speed limit on each road. To manage and reduce speeds we need safe vehicles, safe roads and safe people!
On a previous post in this Blog, we discussed "Actions That Can Be Taken To Improve Pedestrian Safety". For instance, private communities and businesses can consider alternatives, such as speed bumps, signs and citizen education, as a deterrent to drivers exceeding safe speed levels for areas with active pedestrians and cyclists.
At Traffic Safety Direct, we offer speed bumps and other useful products to manage the speed on roads and within parking lots. For further assistance and information on the topic of pedestrian safety, contact us at 888-260-3246