WHO launches second global status report on road safety

Readers of Injury Prevention will be aware that the WHO launched the first ever report on the state of global road safety in 2009.1 At that time, a total of 178 countries took part in the survey, which revealed that approximately 1.23 million people in these countries died as a result of road traffic crashes in 2007. The first Global Status Report on Road Safety was very useful in raising awareness and generating action at national and international levels. It provided valuable information about how far countries had come since the publication of the World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention but also called for more action.2 The status report was recognised in UN General Assembly resolution A/64/255 which called for a Decade of Action (2011–2020) and invited WHO to continue producing regular status reports in order to monitor progress towards attaining the goals of the Decade.3 On 14 March 2013, WHO launched the Global Status Report on Road Safety—2013: Supporting a Decade of …