Four Ways To Address The World’s Top Killer Of Those Ages 5 To 29

The leading cause of death for children and young adults—those five through 29 years of age—around the world may be just around the corner. It’s road traffic injuries, which are responsible for around 1.19 million deaths each year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). But ever since the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety got going in 2007, a number of cities and countries have been taking right turns in preventing what as of 2021 has been the 12th leading cause of all deaths globally. And today, Bloomberg Philanthropies recognized four organizations from four different countries that have been driving the most positive change.

This occurred at an event at The Shed in New York City (NYC) on June 12 that opened with road-themed performances from a lineup of Broadway musical performers. The opening included a rendition of the song ‘Ease on Down the Road’ from The Wiz that got the show at The Shed on the road. Former NYC Mayor and founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies Michael R. Bloomberg then presented the following four as the 2024 inaugural winners of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Excellence in Road Safety Awards:

• National Road Safety Agency in Argentina: About a year ago, in April 2023, this Agency went to zero tolerance for drunk driving, dropping the national legal blood alcohol limit while driving down to zero. Yes, zero. And guess what not allowing people to drive under the influence can do down the road. Since the roll-out of this new limit, the road deaths in one province in Argentina dropped by 37%.
• Secretariat of Mobility in Bogota, Colombia: The Secretariat of Mobility implemented the Livable Neighborhoods Program that changed the design of key road locations like intersections where you may have motor vehicle versus pedestrian and cyclist situations. And take a wild guess as to who will often lose in these confrontations. These design changes have helped reduce the average driving speed and total crashes in different locations. “This was about designing streets for people and not just cars,” explained Kelly Larson, the injury prevention lead at Bloomberg Philanthropies. “The program took back the streets and has resulted in many infrastructure improvements since it started in 2022.”
• National Road Safety Observatory in Tunisia: As Bloomberg emphasized, ‘if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.’ The government in Tunisia substantially increased their available measurements by connecting Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Health data with National Road Safety Observatory (ONSR) information via a new data collection tool. This has made those in Tunisia a whole lot more aware of where crashes have been occurring and what to do about them.
• Pleiku City Council in Pleiku City, Viet Nam: This city council was well-schooled in what’s a problem in many places around the world: motorists speeding near school grounds where kids can become easy victims. The Pleiku City Council Slow Zones, Safe Zones program reduced the speed limit in school zones down to 30 kilometers per hour, which is just under 19 miles per hour. Larson related that “Speed accounts for the half of the around 1.2 million fatalities that result from road crashes each year.” The success of this program in 31 primary schools in Pleiku City has led to changes at 13 schools across other regions of Viet Nam.

In his opening remarks, Bloomberg did warn that the world is at a ‘crossroads,’ showing advances in improving road safety but not making progress fast enough as unnecessary deaths and injuries keep piling up each year. The event assembled numerous road safety experts from around the world as well as those directly impacted by traffic accidents to bring more attention to road safety and discuss ways forward.

The awardees are four exemplars of cities and countries that have been working with the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety, which has included partners such as the WHO, Global Designing Cities Initiative, Global Road Safety Partnership, Global Health Advocacy Incubator, World Resources Institute, Johns Hopkins International Injury Research Unit, World Bank’s Global Road Safety Facility, Global New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP), Vital Strategies, and International Association of Chiefs of Police. This work has spanned the following five types of initiatives: strengthening national legislation, enhancing data collection and surveillance, changing road user behavior, improving road infrastructure and upgrading vehicle safety. Over the past seventeen years, Bloomberg Philanthropies has invested around $500 million into this initiative. The four winners emerged from 30 nominations that spanned 16 countries and were submitted by road safety experts around the world, a number of whom were at the event at The Shed.

“Millions of road fatalities and injuries each year could be prevented with stronger laws, better infrastructure, and more efficient enforcement,” said Bloomberg, who is also the WHO Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases and Injuries, in a statement. “Bloomberg Philanthropies works closely with international partners who are leading the way in implementing these policies, and to shine a spotlight on their progress and the need for more of it, we’re hosting the first-ever Bloomberg Philanthropies Awards for Excellence in Road Safety.”

“It can be easy to take road safety for granted,” Larson emphasized. “A big part of this initiative is to get government officials to recognize that there are proven interventions to address the 12th leading cause of death globally. We’ve seen the impact of these interventions and want to continue to ensure that these interventions spread to countries beyond where we are actually working.”

While road safety is certainly still a concern in high income countries, the 2023 WHO Global Status Report on Road Safety did indicate that around 90% of road traffic-related deaths have happened in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). “In LMICs, there aren’t those safety features that we may take for granted in higher income countries such as the presence of seat belts in cars,” Larson added. So, this is yet another situation where the road isn’t level for everyone.

As these four inaugural awardees have demonstrated, there are cities and countries on the right road to reducing road traffic injuries. But this isn’t an “Ease on Down the Road’ situation. Much more effort is needed around the world to transform traffic systems everywhere to save many more lives. The awards event did close with a rendition of the song ‘“Dancing in the Streets,’ which would be a whole lot safer to do if the right traffic designs and policies were in place everywhere around the world.