UN Launches New Strategy On Road Safety For UN Personnel

The United Nations has launched a new road safety strategy to establish a coordinated approach for preventing road traffic crashes, which is a leading cause of death for UN personnel.

The strategy, entitled, “A Partnership for Safer Journeys,” was launched today at the UN headquarters in New York and at the World Health Organization in Geneva.

It is “based on a safe-system approach that manages the interaction between speed, vehicles, road infrastructure and road-user behaviour to prevent crashes from resulting in deaths and serious human injury,” a UN press release explains.

From 2013 to 2017, the UN “experienced over 600 fatalities and injuries related to road crashes of United Nations vehicles. Sixty of those resulted in the loss of United Nations personnel,” it said, adding that thousands of UN personnel around the world, operate in “dangerous and often treacherous conditions.”

“In line with the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020, established by the General Assembly, this strategy guides United Nations organizations in developing a new approach towards safer journeys,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in the release.

 

Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons.

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