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African roads are the world's worst, for numbers of accidents (image: WHO, click on image to view larger)

Geneva / Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Roads kill 1.3 million people every year – some 3,000 people a day – and the United Nations estimates that the number will rise by 60 percent in the next few years. Half of those who die are pedetsrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. Switzerland’s transport minister, Moritz Leuenberger, told the first ministerial level world conference on road safety, which opened in Moscow Thursday 19 November, that deaths and injuries can be reduced if safety regulations are increased and enforced. He pointed out that Switzerland has reduced its road traffic deaths more than fourfold since 1971 despite a large increase in traffic during that time.

Leuenberger, who presided over one of three key discussions at the United Nations WHO conference, says that safety education campaigns are essential, but they can’t hope to compete with James Bond style advertising on the part of the automobile industry.

Ads that make speed and power appealing must be counter-balanced by heavy penalties that make it clear that speeding and drunk-driving, for example, are serious crimes, not misdemeanors. Switzerland in 2007 tightened its drink/driving laws, which has shifted perceptions of above-limit drinking and driving, he told the conference, and it is now widely seen as a crime.

Technical improvements account for some of the drop in road accident deaths and injuries, he noted. Roundabouts and central dividers on roads have reduced the number of head-on crashes.

The conference was hosted by Russia, whose road accident death rate, of over 30 per 100,000 population, is one of the highest in the region. Nordic countries, with the lowest rates, have figures just above 5 per 100,000.

Links to other sites: Swiss road safety programme Via Secura, WHO on road safety