Abstract
Road accidents constitute a startling epidemic- one of the greatest causes of death and injury between the complications of infancy and the diseases of old age - yet society perceives them with an unhealthy degree of fatalism. Government responses are thereby typically as feeble and as irrational as those of their citizens. Road safety has virtually no political importance and precious little international coordination. If it is to be tackled effectively, it requires a mainspring of something that has been lacking hitherto: outrage and even anger.