{"id":930,"date":"2011-05-16T14:47:44","date_gmt":"2011-05-16T04:47:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.privatefleet.com.au\/?p=930"},"modified":"2020-06-20T01:55:31","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T15:55:31","slug":"the-decade-of-action-for-road-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/home\/the-decade-of-action-for-road-safety\/","title":{"rendered":"The Decade of Action For Road Safety"},"content":{"rendered":"

May the 11th<\/sup> 2011 saw the launch of a new initiative by the United Nations (UN) in combination with the World Health Organisation (WHO) known as the .\u00a0 This is an international movement to reduce the number of people who are killed on the roads.\u00a0 Let\u2019s face it: we love driving, but it\u2019s one of the riskiest things we\u2019ll do, according to the statistics, and this isn\u2019t just a problem for Australia.\u00a0 The UN wants organisations and governments around the world to work to make roads everywhere safer.\u00a0 The goal of this movement is to save 5 million lives (that\u2019s more than the population of our neighbours across the Tasman, i.e. New Zealand) over this ten-year period.<\/p>\n

What are some of the things that the Decade of Action For Road Safety are doing? The broad goals include developing better, safer roads; designing and manufacturing safer cars; what the UN call \u201cenhancing the behaviour of road users\u201d, otherwise known as driver education; and improving post-crash care so people have more chance of surviving a road crash.\u00a0 Road crashes go beyond just car crashes; it also involves bike accidents.<\/p>\n

This decade has only just been officially launched, so at the moment, raising awareness is the name of the game.\u00a0 Events are being planned worldwide, with the first one being projection of the (which looks like one of those familiar yellow diamond road signs) onto international landmarks \u2013 including the Sydney Harbour Bridge.\u00a0 You can buy the tag to wear as a fashion statement (and as a way of funding research into this area), and we\u2019re going to see it turning up all over the place.<\/p>\n

This is all very big and very exciting, but what can the average Aussie motorist do to contribute to this global plan of action to reduce road deaths?\u00a0 Five million deaths prevented worldwide is a big target, but where it all comes down is to individual drivers. So what can you do?<\/p>\n