3rd UN Global Road Safety Week
4-10 May 2015
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2015: Save Lives - #SaveKidsLives
186 300 children die each year from road traffic crashes around the world - that's more than 500 children every day. In fact, road traffic injury ranks among the top four causes of death for all children over the age of five years. The 3rd United Nations Road Safety Week was dedicated to the plight of children on the world's roads.
The #SaveKidsLives campaign has gathered more than 1 million signatures in support of the Child Declaration for Road Safety calling on decision makers around the world to make road safe for children.
During the Week, hundreds of events were hosted by governments, international agencies, civil society organizations, and private companies, including the delivery of the "Child Declaration for Road Safety" to policy-makers. These events highlight WHO's package of ten key strategies for keeping children safe on the road. After the week, the campaign continues to generate action around the world through the 2020 Action Agenda for Road Safety.
Facts
While the road safety challenge is a global one, the children most likely to die in a road traffic crash live in the world's low- and middle-income countries, where 95% of road traffic fatalities among children occur. Rates vary across regions. Even within countries, children from economically poor backgrounds are at greatest risk.
Children of all ages are at risk of being involved in a road traffic crash. Boys account for nearly twice as many road traffic deaths as girls worldwide. This increased risk for boys is thought to be due to greater exposure to traffic, as well as a tendency for boys to take more risks than girls, especially adolescents.
Child Declaration
The Child Declaration for Road Safety kickstarted the #SaveKidsLives campaign. Created with children from all across the world coupled with technical information from road safety experts, the Declaration called on the world's leaders to take real action to save lives.
Before and during the 3rd Week, hundreds of thousands of people added their names in support of the Declaration. After the week, hundreds of thousands more joined the campaign to show their support to #SaveKidsLives. The campaign continued to build momentum past May 2015 to the Second High-Level Meeting on Road Safety in Brasilia, Brazil.
A global movement
By November 2015, the number of people signed up to the #SaveKidsLives campaign had reached over 1 million supporters. Signatures in support of the Child Declaration were gathered all across the world both online and offline in a range of events organized from the grassroots to national level.
Hundreds of thousands of people took #Safies for the campaign to show their solidarity to #SaveKidsLives.
These 1 million signatures were presented to global road safety decision makers from all across the world at the Second High-Level Meeting for Road Safety in Brasilia, Brazil.
Speaking at the event, global road safety campaigner Zoleka Mandela said, "No more empty commitments. No more delay. We are approaching five years into the Decade of Action for Road Safety. Road deaths are actually rising in nearly 70 countries. Where is the action? Where is the urgency?"
The #SaveKidsLives campaign was given a large feature at the meeting with leaders pledging to take action as well as mapping action to reach the Global Goal of halving road traffic deaths by 2020.
As part of the build up to the event, over 500 school children from around Brasilia came together to mark the success of the campaign but to call on decision makers to now take real action to #SaveKidsLives.
In Brazil, at an NGO rally, it was strongly expressed that the campaign should continue after the Brasilia meeting. It was decided that the campaign would continue into an action orientated phase to hold decision makers to account and to enact 5 steps to #SaveKidsLives. The campaign continues to create awareness as well as call for action to #SaveKidsLives.
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