The Commission, chaired by former NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, made recommendations for increasing funding levels for global road safety and argued that the international community was ignoring the scale of road deaths – which World Health Organization statistics show as ranking alongside Malaria and Tuberculosis in terms of global mortality.
The campaign aims to raise public awareness of the scale of the road injury problem and to present this as a key issue for sustainable development.
The main arguments of the report were that road traffic injuries were a major and growing public health epidemic, on the scale of Malaria and TB – according to WHO figures; that the cost to developing countries in human lives and economic loss (estimated at up to $100 billion a year by the World Bank) required urgent attention and that failing to address road safety in the context of development policies (particularly relating to road infrastructure investment) would impede progress towards achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
The report set out three key recommendations aimed at increasing political commitment and investment in road safety: The Make Roads Safe report was endorsed by an Advisory Board including officials, acting in a personal capacity, from the World Bank, OECD, WHO, Asian Development Bank and United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.
More than a hundred and fifty organisations worldwide are supporting the Make Roads Safe campaign to date, including the World Health Organization, the United Nations Environment Programme, the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation, based in Vietnam; the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), the governing body of world motor sport and the worldwide federation of automobile clubs; and the Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP) a hosted programme of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies.
Other organisations that have supported the campaign include BRAC, Oxfam, Safe Kids Worldwide, US injury NGO Amend.org, Fleet Forum and Bridgestone Corporation.
In the UK supporters include the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), ROADSAFE, Roadpeace, Living Streets (the Pedestrians Association), the RAC Foundation, the Parliamentary Advisory Committee on Transport Safety (PACTS), the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) and Transaid, a development NGO focusing on transport.
The campaign has also claimed some success in persuading donors and the major multilateral lending institutions, such as the World Bank, to recognise their responsibilities for improving road safety.
Some critics have argued that this initiative is car-centric, and does not focus on the problems inherent in the way road traffic is organised today.