According to the World Health organisation (WHo) each year 1.3 million people are killed and up to 50 million injured in road crashes worldwide1. the global vehicle fleet reached 1 billion in 2010 and is forecast to double in the next ten to fifteen years. this unprecedented increase is occurring in low and middle income countries which account for 90% of total road deaths. About 48% of all traffic fatalities are vehicle occupants; so to avoid a growing global burden of road injury it is essential to improve automobile safety, especially in rapidly motorising regions. Passenger cars in high income countries are today much safer than ever before. this is the result of many decades of campaigning by safety and consumer rights groups and the efforts of vehicle engineers in the automotive industry. Advocacy and innovation have together made possible a level of car safety many would have thought impossible just a few decades ago. this has saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people (See Box: Progress towards Zero Fatalities). the challenge now is to achieve the same positive experience in the rapidly growing automotive markets of the low and middle income countries where the risk of road injury is the highest in the world. the winning formula for better car safety has been a combination of regulatory “push” and demand “pull”. Government regulation supplemented with consumer information has been the catalyst to build a market for safety and deliver better cars for all. typically, however, safety innovations are first introduced at the luxury end of the car market. As consumer demand grows they become available more widely across the entire vehicle range, are less costly, and ultimately mandated to be a standard fitment. this final regulatory step ensures that lower cost small cars also have essential safety features. the powerful effect of regulation and consumer information is, therefore, to democratise safety; guaranteeing minimum standards and empowering all car buyers to choose the safest vehicles they can afford. the drive for the democratisation of car safety now needs to be extended across all automotive markets worldwide. We cannot expect to meet the life-saving goals of the current Un Decade of Action for road Safety (2011-2020) if safer motor vehicles are mainly available only in high income countries. A market for safety must also be promoted in the emerging economies where car sales are growing among an expanding middle class. Consumers in these countries will demand and have the right to expect that vital safety technologies become available universally wherever new cars are being sold. A strategy to achieve this is set out in this road Map for Safer Cars 2020 which has ten key recommendations. these are summarised on page 55 and include: a package of minimum safety regulations for adoption by the end of the Un Decade, measures to promote a market for safety among car buyers in the rapidly motorising countries, policies to sustain the safety of the vehicles once in use, and a proposed industry voluntary commitment to implement minimum occupant safety standards to all new passenger cars. If this road Map is followed by 2020 all new cars in the world would pass the minimum Un standards for crashworthiness and crash avoidance. this would spread the advances in automotive safety technology across all countries, mitigate the risks of rapid motorisation, and help achieve a world free from many avoidable and unnecessary road traffic fatalities. (Author/publisher)
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