Press Release

15 November 2010

World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims

On 21 November 2010 – the third Sunday of November

The themes for 2010

From global remembrance to global action

Remembering lives lost and broken; do not forget the injured!

Road crashes, the leading cause of violent deaths and injuries worldwide, have in the past year received serious attention: a first ever Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety was held in Moscow on 19-20 November 2009, debating road safety plans for the next decade 2010 – 2020 - a Decade of Action for Road Safety! In March 2010, a UN resolution proclaimed this Decade.

Adopted by a previous UN resolution, of 26 October 2005, the World Day of Remembrance fulfils an important role, not only through offering acknowledgement of their suffering to road crash victims, but also by drawing attention to the devastation and high cost to families, communities and countries. It therefore also supports the planned global actions and its observance is indeed listed as a key milestone for marking progress during that Decade.

On World Day this year again, a great number and variety of events and actions will take place in numerous countries on every continent, some already listed on the dedicated website, with others to follow: www.worlddayofremembrance.org

The following is a quote from the message of Jeannot Mersch, the new President of FEVR:

"FEVR and its member organisations continue to campaign for a reduction of the danger on the roads during the next decade, leading therefore we hope to a reduction in the number of broken lives - in our countries, throughout Europe and in the whole world."

Statements were also issued by:

the Director of the European Transport Safety Council, ETSC, Antonio Avenoso:

"ETSC is observing on November 21st 2010 the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims to draw attention to the sadly large annual numbers of people killed and injured on the road. Complacency about road death and injury needs to be shaken up and efforts reinvigorated in order to end this carnage."

and the new president of TISPOL, the European Traffic Police, Roar Skjelbred Larsen:

"TISPOL fully supports this year's World Day of Remembrance of Road Traffic Victims. Far too many people have experienced the grief and pain of losing a loved one as the result of a road crash: in Europe last year, 35,000 families and friends suffered the loss of a loved one - a son, daughter, mother, father or friend.

TISPOL is fully committed to working with all European road safety stakeholders to achieve the 2020 target and our main priority is, and always will be, reducing the number of people being killed on Europe's roads. We want to avoid other families having to experience the tragedy of losing a loved one through a road crash. I call upon everyone to take a personal responsibility when using the road and to exercise care and to obey the traffic rules at all times. By doing so, we can together make Europe's roads safer for everyone."

Contact details:

Brigitte Chaudhry +44 20 8964 1800 Cette adresse email est protégée contre les robots des spammeurs, vous devez activer Javascript pour la voir.

Jeannot Mersch +352 26 432 121 Cette adresse email est protégée contre les robots des spammeurs, vous devez activer Javascript pour la voir.

A Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims was introduced by RoadPeace in 1993 and observed by the European Federation of Road Traffic Victims (FEVR) as European Day of Remembrance for 10 years, before being adopted by the UN in 2005 as World Day. RoadPeace and FEVR collaborated with the World Health Organisation and produced a Guide for organizers of World Day of Remembrance commemorations.

More information:

http://www.who.int/roadsafety/remembrance_day/en/index.html

NGOs advocating for road victims and safer roads have compiled a Declaration for the Decade of Action, comprising 33 recommendations to governments:

http://www.who.int/roadsafety/ministerial_conference/ngo_declaration.pdf