Every year road crashes in Commonwealth countries result in around 300,000 fatalities and remain the single largest cause of death of young people. The Commonwealth brings together 53 countries facing a wide diversity of road safety performance. Road fatality rates range from 3 per 100,000 population to above 30 per 100,000. In all Commonwealth countries the level of road deaths remains unacceptably high and there is a shared challenge to substantially reduce this predictable and preventable tragedy.
The Commonwealth Road Safety Initiative (CRSI) will promote the adoption of a target to halve deaths and serious injuries from road crashes in Commonwealth countries by 2030.
Launched this month (December 2018), the CRSI will develop a shared framework of best practice in road injury prevention for legislators, policy makers, the private sector, and civil society.
The CRSI will prepare a report to be submitted to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) due to be held in Rwanda in 2020. The Final Report will be launched in December 2019. The report will highlight the importance of:
- setting a target for Commonwealth countries to halve road deaths and serious injuries by 2030;
- the application of the Safe System Approach to promote effective road injury prevention programmes in high, middle, & low-income Commonwealth countries;
- good governance and road safety;
- youth and road safety;
- workplace road safety;
- partnerships for road safety;
- the Sustainable Development Goals and road safety.
The Commonwealth Road Safety Initiative was launched at the Prince Michael Awards 2018
We are proud to have been invited to this expert-panel to bring a focus to youth and road safety issues. Youth remains a predominant focus for the Commonwealth countries whose young people under 30 account for 60% of the population.
Our Head of Communications Manpreet Darroch joined the panel to represent youth and road safety and the UK he said, “It’s an honour to sit on this panel with distinguished global road safety practitioners. It is encouraging to see the new initiative focus on youth and road safety; highlighting the unprecedented challenges and opportunities to tackle the issue. Many efforts/statistics/reports recognize road crashes to be the biggest killer of young people but often fall short in addressing the opportunities of involving young people in meaningful participation in road safety. We will be championing the cause of youth participation in road safety on the panel; a paradigm shift from seeing youth as the problem, to rather working with youth to create a safe system of mobility”.
Members of the Commonwealth Road Safety Initiative Expert Panel include:
- Dr Abdulgafoor Bachani, from Kenya, Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
- Arushi Baluja from India, Head, Department of Driver Training, Institute of Road Traffic Education IRTE, India
- Iain Cameron from Australia, Chair- Western Australian Road Safety Council, Road Safety Commission, Western Australia (CRSI Chairman)
- Christopher Cutajar from Malta, Permanent Secretary, Ministry for Transport, Infrastructure and Capital Projects
- Manpreet Darroch from United Kingdom, Head of Communications and Focal Point for Global Youth Network for Road Safety, YOURS – Youth for Road Safety
- Skye Duncan from New Zealand, Director, Global Designing Cities Initiative National Association of City Transportation Officials
- Dr Connie H. Hoe from Canada, Assistant Scientist, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
- Ahmed Najmul Hussain from Bangladesh, Director Administration and Road Safety Programme, Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee BRAC, Bangladesh
- Dr Lucien Jones from Jamaica, Vice Chairman, Jamaican National Road Safety Council,
- Dr Emily Newhouse, MD, MPH, FRCPC, from Canada, Medical Health Officer from Vancouver Coastal Health, Canada
- Bright Oywaya from Kenya, Executive Director for the Association for Safe International Road Travel (ASIRT-Kenya)
- Dr Margie Peden from South Africa, Senior Research Fellow and Head of the UK Injury Programme George Institute for Global Health
- Adrian Walsh from the United Kingdom, Executive Director RoadSafe
- Professor Shaw Voon Wong from Malaysia, Director General, MIROS, Malaysia
- Jessica Truong from Australia, Vice President Programmes, Towards Zero Foundation (CRSI Co-ordinator)
The Secretariat of the CRSI is the Toward Zero Foundation (TZF), a UK charity under the patronage of HRH Prince Michael of Kent. The TZF is a member of the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration and has consultative status with the United Nations (ECOSOC).