Time to take road safety more seriously

Staffers of the Thailand Accident Research Centre inspect a site where a car crash took place in Ban Bung district in Chon Buri last year. (Photo by Patipat Janthong)

Our children, here in Thailand and across the world, face unacceptable health burdens from motor traffic each day on the journey to school. They face the twin threats of toxic air and traffic injury which can end their young lives in a moment, or condemn them to a existence filled with pain and injustice.

This is a very personal issue for me. My own daughter, my beautiful Zenani, was killed on a Johannesburg road by a drunk driver. She had only just turned 13, in fact she had been a teenager for barely 48 hours. This year, she would have seen her 21st birthday. Neglect of road safety contributed to Zenani's death, as it does for the millions who are killed and injured on the roads each year. We are losing a battle, and we are causing our families, and our children to suffer.

Because road traffic injury is an epidemic that we are failing to adequately confront. In 2015 the international community committed to tackle road death with two targets on road traffic injury in the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.

But three years on, far too little progress has been made. Almost 1.4 million people are killed each year on the world's roads. This should be totally unacceptable, yet still seems to be accepted.

For any other epidemic or disease, if we had available the vaccines that could prevent thousands of deaths, but failed to deploy them, there would be outcry. Yet, for example, each day, despite all we know about effective and safe road design, new roads are still being built around the world which lack basic safety measures. If there's a crash, instead of being protected, you will be punished with a death sentence.

In this region and worldwide, as people strive to climb out of poverty they reach for the most affordable, accessible form of transport.

Often, this means the motorcycle as the main means of family transport. Yet helmet usage is far too low, and enforcement of laws too weak and inconsistent -- that is why Thailand has one of the highest rates of motorcycle crash deaths of anywhere in the world. And most unforgivably, millions of children are exposed to danger every day on the roads. We fail to provide them with a safe journey to school. Every day 3,000 children and young people lose their lives or face serious injury on our roads across the globe.

Yet what I want to share is a message of hope. We can, must, and will find a way forward.

I take strength from the words my grandfather, Nelson Mandela, said to me while I was grieving the loss of my daughter: "You are not the only one who has lost a child," he said. "I have lost a child and many people have. But for you, it is so that you can bring hope to many."

My grandparents knew a thing or two about fighting against injustice. Losing a child to a man-made epidemic is one of the greatest injustices. Though they were at the forefront of their struggle, my grandparents did not fight alone. They were joined by many others. We too, must make common cause with others and build a movement.

Road traffic injury sits with air pollution and non-communicable diseases as big, growing challenges of our developing world. We must confront them together if we are to make progress.

We must also recognise that, if we are serious about clean air and reducing emissions, we must re-engineer our cities and transport systems to reduce our reliance on cars.

The question we ask our policy makers is -- will you implement these solutions? Or are you willing to fail our children? We must call upon them to make commitments to make our streets safe and healthy for all. We must hold them to account. We want to see real leadership and real commitments.

Let us say enough to the injustice of road traffic injury. No longer will we accept the senseless carnage on our roads. This crisis is entirely preventable and action must be taken.

We should highlight and celebrate the increasing number of examples of progress, the momentum of the governments and cities that have put the vulnerable first, and reduced casualties. But we should be honest and clear: we need a step-change in action. And the international health community must also get its house in order.

One specific change I want to see is road traffic injury -- the leading killer of adolescents -- being included in the UN's strategy for child and adolescent health, with the expert support and catalytic resources that would flow from that. Here, the Thai government, which has hosted our global injury conference this week, could help by encouraging UN health leaders to make this issue a priority.

For too long we have sat back and accepted the man-made epidemic robbing us of our children. Now is the time to reclaim the agenda. I am proud to lead a new global campaign which is channelling the voices of children who say: "This is My Street, this is where I want to walk, cycle, play. This is my right".

For our families, our children and the next generation, we cannot fail.