The UN Global Road Safety week is coming up May 17–23. The objectives of this year’s road safety week is to garner policy commitments at national and local levels to lower urban speed limits, create healthy, green, liveable spaces and kick off the 2021–2030 decade for road safety. This year’s theme is dubbed, Streets for Life, with a #Love30 campaign that calls for 30km/h (20mph) speed limits worldwide in cities, towns and villages where people walk, live and play.
Studies indicate that high speeds significantly narrow motorists’ peripheral vision and negatively impact their reaction times, putting pedestrians and other vulnerable road users (e.g., cyclists) at greater risk of death.
In 2020, with lock down requirements in place in many parts of the world, the number of fatalities still went up in countries like Kenya where unsafe driving was observed whenever lockdown restrictions were lifted and just before curfew hours (Kenya National Transport Safety Authority).
As we kick off the decade for road safety with a goal to reduce by half the number of road traffic deaths and injuries by 2030, we can do our part to save more lives.
A road fatality occurs every 24 seconds. That’s about the time it takes to download, read and sign this open letter, to join the campaign to call for safe streets where people walk, live and play
We have some exciting updates we will be unveiling during this year’s UN Global Road Safety Week. Stay tuned at Helpfie.com