Destination 2030: A guide to improving road safety governance

Every day 3,200 people die on the world's roads, with road traffic crashes being the leading cause of death globally for people between the ages of 5 and 29 years. That is nearly three times the number of deaths from intentional homicide. And up to 137,000 people per day suffer a non-fatal injury on the road, underscoring the burden of road traffic accidents on overall public safety. 

Global governance bodies have long recognised the urgent need to reduce road deaths. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals included a target to halve road traffic deaths by 2020. Unfortunately, despite encouraging progress by some countries, this target was not met. Consequently, the deadline has been extended to 2030, and 2021-2030 has been declared a Decade of Action on Road Safety. 

One of the most promising developments in this effort is the adoption of the Safe Systems Approach to road safety. This approach shifts responsibility for road safety from the individual road users to all parties designing and operating the transport system, and with this is a need to institutionalise a culture of collective responsibility and a willingness to surrender a level of autonomy. The Safe System Approach provides the means to reduce road traffic deaths, but translating this from theory to action requires all agents across the road safety ecosystem to work together.

Our ALI(i)GN framework will help governments at all levels to design and develop inclusive governance arrangements necessary to insitutionalise any partnership, and navigate the potential implementation challenges to achieve positive action and impactful change now and into the future.  

Governments must place a higher priority on improving road safety, putting together the arrangements necessary to deliver on the UN SDG target of halving road traffic deaths by 2030 through mass adoption of the Safe System Approach. 

To do this they should:

• Use our ALI(i)GN framework to review existing arrangements and identify changes to ensure a connected and empowered road safety ecosystem with clear responsibilities and goals. 

• Support any governance arrangements with a clear roadmap for improving road safety using the Safe System Approach, setting actionable and measurable interim targets through to 2030. 

• Actively monitor and engage with the emerging opportunities and risks of technological innovations and developments impacting the future of road safety.

Only by working together collectively, as a unified ecosystem, can we create a meaningful and lasting impact, and drive action to reduce road traffic deaths.