Millions of lives to save on the roads

At the end of every day, when the sun sets, the futures of five hundred children who were there to see it rise have been wiped out. This can’t be seen as business as usual. We are facing a road safety emergency.

Each year, around 1.4 million people are killed in motor vehicle collisions and many more are injured. Yet this global tragedy is hidden in plain sight. Casualties are too often accepted as part of the normal order of things. The forgotten 1.4 million who die on the roads every year deserve a legacy in the form of a safer world. Many of their deaths were preventable: the solutions are within our grasp.

In this book, Jean Todt makes the case for a road safety revolution. One that embraces a ‘safe system’ approach with the ambitious aim of eliminating fatalities altogether. We urgently need action from governments around the world. Todt calls for a global Road Safety Summit, modelled on the Earth Summits that have done so much to help us focus on the future of the planet. We know the scale of the problem and what needs to be done. It’s time to step up and deliver radical change.