This original article can be found at the Economist here.

Other places such as New York City are now trying to copy its success. How has Sweden done it?

Since reaching a peak in road deaths in the 1970s, rich countries have become much better at reducing the number of traffic accidents. (Poor countries, by contrast, have seen an increasing death toll, as car sales have accelerated.) In 1997 the Swedish parliament wrote into law a “Vision Zero” plan, promising to eliminate road fatalities and injuries altogether. “We simply do not accept any deaths or injuries on our roads,” says Hans Berg of the national transport agency. Swedes believe—and are now proving—that they can have mobility and safety at the same time.

We call upon you, the Global Youth Network for Road Safety to take action for global road safety and influence the Post-2015 Development Agenda. This is a great opportunity to show your unity and passion behind this issue and put road safety high on the global agenda for future of development and saving lives. It’s very easy to take part in this call to action, all we ask is that you send a model letter to influence your country’s decision makers.

The importance of safe and sustainable transportation for the Post 2015 development agenda has been recognised during the Open Working Group consultations (OWG) and by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in his recommendations to the UN General Assembly on steps to advance the Post-2015 Agenda.  A Post-2015 target for reducing road traffic fatalities could be situated within a health goal as suggested by the UNSG. The target would be measurable, easy to communicate, inclusive and universal. It would contribute to sustainable development building on the MDGs. 

We call upon you, the youth network for road safety to call on your decision makers to include safe and sustainable transport in the Post 2015 development agenda.

The proposed target by 2030 is to halve the burden of global road traffic crashes from the 2010 baseline in the WHO Global Status Report on Road Safety 2013.

• Fatalities target:  By 2030, reducing the number of people killed on the world’s roads to less than 620,000 per year from the 2010 baseline of 1.24 million per year. 
• Fatality targets by country income cluster (the Results Framework also includes injury and economic targets by income level). Reduce road traffic fatality rates by 2030 to:
  < 4 per 100,000 population in high-income countries (baseline of 8.7 in 2010 )
  < 7 per 100,000 population in middle-income countries (baseline of 20.1 in 2010)
  < 12 per 100,000 population in low-income countries (baseline of 18.3 in 2010) 
• Serious Injuries:  By 2030, reduce the number of people seriously injured on the world’s roads to less than 6,200,000 per year from the 2010 baseline of 12.4 million per year. 
• Economic Impact:  By 2030, reduce the global economic impact of road crashes to less than 1.5% of GDP per year from the current 3% of GDP per year

As highlighted in the Global Burden of Disease 2010 study road crashes are the leading cause of death globally for young people aged 15-29. Low- and middle-income countries account for the vast majority (90%) of road traffic fatalities. The GBD 2010 Study and the WHO Global Status Report on Road Safety 2013 confirm the divide between developed and developing countries on road injury. In Australasia, Western Europe and North America road deaths were reduced by between 13% and 43% during the GBD period. They rose dramatically in SE Asia (66%), Central America (33%) and West Africa (112%) during the same period. 

Download the model letter and represent YOUR NGO to influence the decision making process.
 

Who to contact
The following is a list of the categories of potential decision-makers you could contact to argue for safe and sustainable mobility in the post-2015 agenda:

• Head of Government
• Foreign Minister
• Transport Minister
• Health minister
• Minister with responsibility in Foreign Ministry
• Head of UN Desk at Foreign Ministry
• Your government’s UN Permanent Representative in New York
  (You can find contact information for every UN Mission here.

In partnership with the Road Safety Fund, the Guardian’s Global Road Safety in Focus series offers in depth explorations of road safety issues from around the world. In a recent article, the focus was placed on Latin America and the rising costs of road traffic crashes. We feature their article here.

The family of Susana Suárez, a 35-year-old Venezuelan dentist, are still in shock over her death in a traffic accident in May. She and a friend were killed on their way back from the beach, two more of the 130,000 victims who died on Latin America’s roads in 2013.

“I wasn’t prepared for her death,” says her sister, Lilian Suárez. “They were coming home at around eight at night in her car, and they got a flat tyre as they drove on to a bridge. They fell into the Aroa river, at a spot where the water is deep and turbulent.”
 

It was not the first time that a vehicle fell into the river from that bridge, near the town of Tucaras in the western state of Falcón. On a poorly lit, badly paved and inadequately signalled spot along the road, even a semi-trailer truck fell in once, says Suárez – “where there is a bridge with a weak railing”.

Added to the 130,000 casualties are “6 million people who are injured, including hundreds of thousands who are left with a permanent disability,” Verónica Raffo, a senior infrastructure specialist at the World Bank, says.

There are 19.2 road fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants in Latin America – “more than three times the rate of some European countries,” says Raffo, citing the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) global status report on road safety 2013. Africa, with 24 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, and the Middle East-North Africa, with 21 per 100,000, are the other regions losing the most lives to traffic accidents. In South America, the rate is 21 per 100,000 inhabitants. 

“For young people in the region between the ages of 15 and 44, traffic accidents are the main cause of death,” says Raffo, from the World Bank offices in Buenos Aires. “It is an extremely significant loss because the state invests a great deal in their health, education and wellbeing and loses them at their time of greatest productivity for society.”
 

Bernardo Baranda, Latin America director for the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, told IPS from Mexico City that the lack of road safety remained a major public health problem. “Aside from the family and emotional tragedies, the most productive people are dying,” Baranda says. “These aren’t accidents, they are preventable occurrences.”

In March 2010, the countries of Latin America signed the UN resolution proclaiming 2011-20 the decade of action for road safety.The governments of more than 100 countries have committed to cutting down road deaths and injuries, with the aim of reducing by half the predicted increase in global road deaths by 2020. The goal is to save 5 million lives and $5bn in costs.

In Latin America, the projection was 30 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, owing to the rise in the number of vehicles and the further decline in road safety, and the commitment is to bring the rate down to 15 per 100,000. “But in many countries, traffic accidents are on the rise, and few have managed to stabilise or reduce the number of victims,” Raffo says.

Argentina, Chile and Uruguay have achieved good results, thanks to “strong political leadership and institutional changes to improve administration and management”, she adds.Five pillars are needed to combat road accidents, according to Raffo. The first is to improve institutions. In most countries, responsibility is dispersed and there is a lack of adequate institutions, she says

Argentina is one model to be followed. In 2008, it created the National Road Safety Agency, with an observatory that monitors policies, campaigns, strategies and results; this has led to significant improvements.

Colombia ended 2013 with the approval of a similar agency, in a country where road accidents represent the second most frequent cause of violent death, according to the World Bank.The Bank and regional institutions report that the countries where traffic accidents have increased since 2011 are Bolivia, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

“Working on road safety means working on equality, because the lack of safety mainly affects the most vulnerable users, who are also the most vulnerable segments of society,” says Raffo. “The second pillar is safe infrastructure, roads and urban mobility; the third is safe vehicles and drivers; the fourth is educational and awareness-raising policies; and the fifth is a key issue: post-accident response, that so many lives depend on.

“These five pillars make up the focus of a safe system, which is accompanied by the concept of shared responsibility. The state leads and co-ordinates, the drivers obey the rules, car makers and insurance agencies put a priority on safety, and civil society works to bring about changes in behaviour.”

Baranda, meanwhile, is calling for “reliable data, reduced speeds, measures to fight drunk driving, stricter law enforcement, and prevention through education”.”A multisectoral strategy is needed, with very clear goals. Actions must be more forceful,” he adds.

One piece of good news was the creation of the Ibero-American Road Safety Observatory, which Raffo and other experts see as fundamental for the region to have monitoring, management of data, indicators and policies, and a platform for sharing successful experiences.Although the first three years of the decade have not provided grounds for optimism, the evidence shows there are some countries that have brought extremely high road fatality rates down, Raffo says.

“We have to stop holding the fatalistic view that because the region grew economically and the number of motor vehicles has increased as a result, the number of deaths has gone up,” she adds. “Things don’t have to be this way, it’s possible to change: Argentina and others show it’s possible.”

Besides, developing countries “lose 1-3% of GDP [to road accidents], in some cases up to 4-5%; that’s an extremely high cost,” she says.