ABSTRACT
Road safety management does not make international headlines. The subject is absent from the agendas of global summits on poverty reduction, public health, engineering, and often transportation. Yet few issues merit more urgent attention. Road traffic deaths and injuries represent a global epidemic, and the costs of that epidemic are borne overwhelmingly by the world’s poorest countries and people. When it comes to death and injury, no war or humanitarian disaster rivals the impact of road injuries. Few killer diseases pose an equivalent level of risk. Apart from the devastating human consequences, road traffic injuries are holding back progress in economic growth, poverty reduction, health, and education. With projections pointing to an increase in fatalities and injuries on the roads of the world’s poorest nations, society needs to address the culture of neglect that pushes road safety to the margins of transport and development policy.
